Likud MK Dr. Yuval Shteinitz told Arutz-7 today that he doesn\'t understand why the army goes to such lengths to deny a connection with the explosion: \"I think the army apologizes too much and denies too much, thereby implying that we don\'t have a right to fight back. This is a form of humiliation; we have a perfect right to shoot at those who attack us.\" Shteinitz objected to the term \"liquidations\" in describing the policy of targeted killing of terrorist leaders: \"This is a war. There are those who criticize us for killing them without a trial - but they don\'t propose an alternative. The truth is that the Europeans, and even some people here at home, condemn us for every single military reaction that we employ in our fight against terrorism: If we use F-16 fighter bombers against their headquarters, they say that this is an excessive use of force; if we retaliate against shooting at Gilo by firing into Beit Jala, they call that \'endangering citizens;\' if we then concentrate on specific targets, on the terrorists themselves, with minimum damage to their surroundings, they condemn us for not holding a trial.\"
Shteinitz said that if the PA continues not to declare a ceasefire, \"we cannot be restricted to shooting only at the exact terrorists who shot at us. It cannot be that they attack us randomly, while we make sure to hit only the exact ones who hit us...\" Arutz-7\'s Haggai Segal then said, \"But then we run the risk of having our officers and soldiers be subject to arrest whenever they travel abroad, for \'war crimes...\'\" Shteinitz said,
\"This is precisely the absurdity of the situation: The more we try to look good in the eyes of the world, the more they condemn us. We try to look so good and righteous to everyone, holding ourselves to higher standards than everyone else, and this leads to world scrutiny using these very standards. But if we simply declare that we are at war, and see all those wearing an enemy uniform as a legitimate target, we would not be subject to the same criticism. Of course, they would demand that we show restraint, and the like, but the legitimacy of our fight would not be called into question.\"
Shteinitz said that if the PA continues not to declare a ceasefire, \"we cannot be restricted to shooting only at the exact terrorists who shot at us. It cannot be that they attack us randomly, while we make sure to hit only the exact ones who hit us...\" Arutz-7\'s Haggai Segal then said, \"But then we run the risk of having our officers and soldiers be subject to arrest whenever they travel abroad, for \'war crimes...\'\" Shteinitz said,
\"This is precisely the absurdity of the situation: The more we try to look good in the eyes of the world, the more they condemn us. We try to look so good and righteous to everyone, holding ourselves to higher standards than everyone else, and this leads to world scrutiny using these very standards. But if we simply declare that we are at war, and see all those wearing an enemy uniform as a legitimate target, we would not be subject to the same criticism. Of course, they would demand that we show restraint, and the like, but the legitimacy of our fight would not be called into question.\"