Interviewed on Israel's Channel 2 television Saturday, Police Chief Moshe Karadi said, "The eviction will be carried out in any event - calmly or by force."
When asked if the police would use live weapons fire during the evictions, Karadi replied: "I hope not, but as the person responsible for professional operations, I cannot afford to rule out that assumption. From now on, there will be no more mixed messages. From now on, there will be unequivocal enforcement of the law."
Children and youths stood for an hour and a half outside National Police Headquarters in Jerusalem today, protesting the police's violence towards them. Some of them wore shirts with targets, captioned, "Karadi, Shoot Me."
The Jewish Community of Hevron demands that Karadi be fired immediately. "It cannot be that Yesha leaders and national camp representatives meet with Karadi and police officers who incite to the murder of Jews. We must cut off ties with inciters."
Karadi also said, "If there is one thing worse than the use of violence, it is capitulation to violence. And in my opinion, the people that we saw [in Hevron], at least some of them, do not recognize the sovereign authority of the state to operate there.... We also saw people in masks. Who wears masks? Those are people with something to hide. The masked people I know began with covering their faces, went on to throwing rocks, to firebombs and also fired on security forces. Therefore, we must not accept the phenomena that we saw."
Hevron spokesman Noam Arnon said, "The nationalist camp must unite and start fighting over the fateful things happening to us now. We have to understand that after this incitement, we can't just continue with business-as-usual."
Chief Karadi also told Channel 2 that he distinguishes between the general population of Judea and Samaria, "whose contact with police is not generally as lawbreakers," and those who he says were involved in breaking the law in Hevron. Even among the latter group, however, "the distinction must be made between criminal lawbreaking and ideological lawbreaking."
Expressing enthusiastic support for Police Chief Karadi's statements, Knesset Member Ilan Lebovitch (Shinui) said, "It's about time the police employed a heavy hand against the lawbreaking settlers. There is no difference between a masked settler and a masked Palestinian. I hope that an end will be made of wildness, because their violence will cause anarchy."
Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union), in contrast, said that Karadi's statements are an attempt to justify firing on Jews in Hevron. Karadi, Eldad said, "was part of the blood libel about the acid in Kfar Darom... He must be stopped before it's too late. The State of Israel needs a professional police chief and not a political one."
Similarly, MK Sha'ul Yahalom, chairman of the National Religious Party faction, said that the police chief "ought to stop heating up the atmosphere and worry about handling all the confrontations with brains and not force. Fanning the flames that can lead to a civil war is exactly the opposite of what Israel needs at the moment."
When asked if the police would use live weapons fire during the evictions, Karadi replied: "I hope not, but as the person responsible for professional operations, I cannot afford to rule out that assumption. From now on, there will be no more mixed messages. From now on, there will be unequivocal enforcement of the law."
Children and youths stood for an hour and a half outside National Police Headquarters in Jerusalem today, protesting the police's violence towards them. Some of them wore shirts with targets, captioned, "Karadi, Shoot Me."
The Jewish Community of Hevron demands that Karadi be fired immediately. "It cannot be that Yesha leaders and national camp representatives meet with Karadi and police officers who incite to the murder of Jews. We must cut off ties with inciters."
Karadi also said, "If there is one thing worse than the use of violence, it is capitulation to violence. And in my opinion, the people that we saw [in Hevron], at least some of them, do not recognize the sovereign authority of the state to operate there.... We also saw people in masks. Who wears masks? Those are people with something to hide. The masked people I know began with covering their faces, went on to throwing rocks, to firebombs and also fired on security forces. Therefore, we must not accept the phenomena that we saw."
Hevron spokesman Noam Arnon said, "The nationalist camp must unite and start fighting over the fateful things happening to us now. We have to understand that after this incitement, we can't just continue with business-as-usual."
Chief Karadi also told Channel 2 that he distinguishes between the general population of Judea and Samaria, "whose contact with police is not generally as lawbreakers," and those who he says were involved in breaking the law in Hevron. Even among the latter group, however, "the distinction must be made between criminal lawbreaking and ideological lawbreaking."
Expressing enthusiastic support for Police Chief Karadi's statements, Knesset Member Ilan Lebovitch (Shinui) said, "It's about time the police employed a heavy hand against the lawbreaking settlers. There is no difference between a masked settler and a masked Palestinian. I hope that an end will be made of wildness, because their violence will cause anarchy."
Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union), in contrast, said that Karadi's statements are an attempt to justify firing on Jews in Hevron. Karadi, Eldad said, "was part of the blood libel about the acid in Kfar Darom... He must be stopped before it's too late. The State of Israel needs a professional police chief and not a political one."
Similarly, MK Sha'ul Yahalom, chairman of the National Religious Party faction, said that the police chief "ought to stop heating up the atmosphere and worry about handling all the confrontations with brains and not force. Fanning the flames that can lead to a civil war is exactly the opposite of what Israel needs at the moment."