Likud MKs Demand Halt to Peace Talks

“The talks are deluding both the Israeli public and the Arabs,” Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon declared. “We must stop this predictable crash course immediately,” adding that no more Palestinian prisoners should be released.

After this latest in a long string of terrorist attacks, Netanyahu condemned the incident in the Knesset, but stopped short of agreeing to suspend negotiations with the Palestinians.

“Surrounding the murderer is an education system, official Palestinian Authority newspapers, mosques and other places in Palestinian society that are full of incitement,” Netanyahu said. “If we want real peace, the incitement has to stop.”

Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said “the Palestinian Authority’s well-oiled incitement system continues to claim victims. [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas has a tactic of indirectly harming Israel. Jews aren’t killed by PA officials but by the ‘Palestinian street,’ which is fed each day by anti-Israel propaganda. We cannot continue talking peace while the PA is talking terror,” Hotovely said.

However, Opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich encouraged Netanyahu continue the peace process. The Labor party chairman urged Netanyahu not to use the attack “to continue sabotaging negotiations, which anyway are bruised and battered taking place under the shadow of a crisis with the U.S.”

Almagor Terror Victims Organization chairman Meir Indor said “we cannot ignore what is behind the recent chain of terror attacks. It is encouraged by the American government, which threatens the obedient Israeli government if they do not release terrorists.”

“The lives of Jews are not as important to [Secretary of State] John Kerry as the residents of Boston. He wouldn’t have released the Chechen terrorist,” Indor said, referring to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected Boston Marathon bomber.

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the November 14th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.