Gush Etzion residents spent the day blocking the road to Palestinian traffic. They and other inhabitants of Judea and Samaria have been claiming for weeks that the army must not allow Arabs to travel freely while they themselves are sitting ducks for their murderous attacks.
Eitan Golan, the mayor of Gush Etzion\'s largest town, Efrata, spoke to Arutz-7 today about the difficult situation he and his neighbors are now experiencing: \"It\'s not a question of how we feel: Objectively, the situation is getting worse and worse... To ask us how it affects us is not a relevant question. The question is rather what must be done to make the trivial action of travelling along the road one that can be done without worrying, just like in any normal country?\" He said that he senses that the army officers are not telling him what he himself feels, \"and that is that their hands are tied. The army is doing a lot here, and there are no words to thank them for their tremendous efforts, but the fact is that the test is in the results - and the results tell us that the army must do something different, period.\"
Mayor Golan said that he does not think the solution lies in preventing Arabs from driving: \"I don\'t think that people travelling to work or to the doctor have to be made to suffer - instead, the heads of the groups doing the terrorism need to be chopped off, and maybe the hands that are doing the shooting as well. The work must be done from the very core of the problem.\" When asked if he has expectations from Ariel Sharon at present, Golan said, \"I primarily have expectations from Ehud Barak, who is still the Prime Minister, and who continues to have the day-to-day and hour-to-hour responsibility. He does not fulfill his obligation by coming to comfort the mourners - he must do everything to ensure that there *are* no mourners. He has the tools by which to do it, yet he is not doing it.\"
Eitan Golan, the mayor of Gush Etzion\'s largest town, Efrata, spoke to Arutz-7 today about the difficult situation he and his neighbors are now experiencing: \"It\'s not a question of how we feel: Objectively, the situation is getting worse and worse... To ask us how it affects us is not a relevant question. The question is rather what must be done to make the trivial action of travelling along the road one that can be done without worrying, just like in any normal country?\" He said that he senses that the army officers are not telling him what he himself feels, \"and that is that their hands are tied. The army is doing a lot here, and there are no words to thank them for their tremendous efforts, but the fact is that the test is in the results - and the results tell us that the army must do something different, period.\"
Mayor Golan said that he does not think the solution lies in preventing Arabs from driving: \"I don\'t think that people travelling to work or to the doctor have to be made to suffer - instead, the heads of the groups doing the terrorism need to be chopped off, and maybe the hands that are doing the shooting as well. The work must be done from the very core of the problem.\" When asked if he has expectations from Ariel Sharon at present, Golan said, \"I primarily have expectations from Ehud Barak, who is still the Prime Minister, and who continues to have the day-to-day and hour-to-hour responsibility. He does not fulfill his obligation by coming to comfort the mourners - he must do everything to ensure that there *are* no mourners. He has the tools by which to do it, yet he is not doing it.\"