MK Ayelet Shaked
MK Ayelet ShakedFlash 90

The Palestinian Authority has no right to demand that Israel release terrorists it is holding, MK Ayelet Shaked of Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) wrote on Sunday. “We must not become confused by terminology,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “The 'prisoners' in question are not regular criminals, but terrorists.”

Shaked was commenting on the recent unrest in Judea and Samaria by Arabs demanding that Israel release PA terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. Unrest grew on Sunday, as the PA claimed that an Arab terrorist, Arafat Jaradat, died in Israeli custody in Megiddo Prison. At a press conference Sunday night, the PA said that Jaradat had been tortured to death, and not died of a heart attack, as Israel claimed.

Shaked said that Israelis should not be fooled by the attempts by Arabs to “whitewash” the terror undertaken by these “prisoners," writing, "They are terrorists, not 'regular' prisoners, and the 'protests' being undertaken by Arabs are 'riots.'”

“We cannot allow the far left to confuse us as to who is right and wrong in this struggle,” Shaked wrote. “We stand behind the IDF, police, the Border Police, and the Prisons Service. We call upon the government of Israel to stand firm in the face of these provocations by radical leftists and Palestinians,” she added.