MK Yinon Magal (Jewish Home) told Channel 2 television that he foresees "crazy" violence in the next round of fighting with the Arabs.
"If we are not strong, and if we do not make clear to them that they will pay a price for their violence, there will be a lot of blood here," he told interviewer Haim Etgar. "I think crazy stuff will happen here if this violence continues..." He estimated that up to 100,000 Arabs might be killed.
Asked if it is not better to show some moderation, so that matters calm down, he replied:
"Achieving calm is not a value. Victory is a value. We need to say the truth, we need to say what we really think, we need to say what the situation really is. People say, 'We have no war with the Palestinian nation; we have a war with the terror organizations.' What is this nonsense? When they murder two parents next to their children, and in all of the [Arab] villages, people hand out candies, what is that? What does it mean? Do we want to turn a blind eye to that?"
When asked if he would prefer someone else at the nation's helm, he said that he hopes to see his party's leader, Naftali Bennett, as prime minister, and that he believes this will happen eventually.
"I think that over the years, the prime minister has been artfully and pretty impressively juggling matters in the face of all of the pressures that surround us," said Magal. "If you ask me, that era is over. The Prime Minister has to say the truth – and say that there will not be a Palestinian state. It won't happen. Not because I'm saying it or because he'll say it. He knows it won't happen."
We are a nation of lunatics
Magal served in the vaunted Sayeret Matkal – the same commando unit that Bennett served in. He said that he discusses the security situation with Bennett before Security Cabinet sessions that Bennett partakes in.
"Listen, I sit at the sessions of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee," he explained. "I hear what is going on in the Gaza Strip. We saw what happened during Operation Protective Edge. We are simply crazy! We are a nation of lunatics, if you look at what we did here in the last 20 years. We were dealing with rocks. Now there are missiles pointed at the state of Israel, all the way to Tel Aviv, and tunnels that pass under the border fence."
He laughed: "It's funny, the Left says to us – 'so why don't you conquer Gaza? Why don't you take their weapons?' I mean really, come on. It was you who broke the jug, and now you want us to put it back to its former state?"
Magal, 46, was born into a secular home. He moved closer to Judaism when his father died 14 years ago, and is now religious, although he rarely wears a kippah. He was a journalist for many years before joining the Jewish Home.
"I hear the footsteps of the Messiah," he said. "If you ask me if there will be a Temple – there will be."
Magal has come under intense fire from the Left for recent statements, that terrorists should receive "a bullet in the head," and that Israel should slap a curfew on Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods.
In July, though, Magal raised the ire of staunch nationalists, when he told students at Tel Aviv University that despite believing that the Land of Israel is the Jews' by divine decree, and although he does not believe it is possible to reach peace with the Palestinians, theoretically, he would favor land concessions for peace, if peace were truly possible. He later claimed that his statements were taken out of context.