Opposition Knesset Member Dr. Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) spoke with IsraelNationalNews.com in the wake of reports that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has agreed to freeze all Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria in return for sanctions against Iran.
Ben-Ari said: “The agreement which seems to be forming between Netanyahu and the U.S. administration proves once again that, as the Likud slogan says, 'Only the Likud Can' - only the Likud can talk Right and act Left.... The attempt to make us understand that the freeze of construction is justified by sanctions that will be implemented against Iran is a lie. There is no connection between these issues.”
Instead of the apparent Netanyahu capitulation, Ben-Ari said that Israel “must say to the world: The Iranian problem is your problem; we will not commit suicide and make Judea and Samaria into part of an enemy state by freezing Jewish construction.”
According to the opposition legislator, a construction freeze is “basically implementing the Olmert 'convergence plan'.”
In response to a statement by far-left MK Chaim Oron (Meretz) that Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria are “the spearhead of occupation," Ben-Ari said that “what he calls the end of the occupation I call the destruction of the state of Israel. If the Likud wants to prove me wrong its members must dismiss Prime Minister Netanyahu and appoint from within someone more suitable.”
In a separate interview with Arutz Sheva's Hebrew-language TV the following day, regarding public criticism of a religious educational institution with which he was affiliated, MK Ben-Ari said he “feels the atmosphere is like it was on the eve of the expulsion from Gush Katif - an atmosphere of incitement against the religious and settler communities.”