Haaretz: The right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is finding it difficult to cope with the “lone-wolf intifada,” which has been underway for more than five months. The frustration and helplessness of ministers in the face of public pressure is dragging them into a moral abyss.
A new moral low was recorded by Netanyahu last week, with his very public demand that Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit legitimize the idea of deporting the families of terrorists from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Gaza Strip. Mendelblit rejected the idea, explaining that it contravened international law, which prohibits the deportation of inhabitants from occupied lands.
Netanyahu’s letter to the attorney general looked like a transparent public relations exercise, intended to present the “jurists” as scapegoats – as if they are the ones preventing the government from dealing with rampant terror. The exercise is also intended to release pressure brought to bear by Transportation and Road Safety Minister Yisrael Katz, whose push for a law allowing for the deportation of such families presents Netanyahu as a weak and soft politician.
Categories: Arab World, Bigotry, Israel, The Muslim Times