Economics Minister and Bayit Yehudi party chairman Naftali Bennett issued a statement Saturday evening as a memorial for slain former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was held in Tel Aviv.
“I believe this path is misguided and has caused tremendous damage, sorrow and grief to the people of Israel and to thousands of families that lost their loved ones in the post-Oslo terror.”
“For some years,” he went on, “an equation was made, between denouncing the Rabin assassination, and supporting the Oslo path. I remember a poster that said ‘we will not forget and we will not forgive,’ which showed Rabin’s picture and under it, Netanyahu’s. In effect they were blaming Netanyahu for the murder, and saying ‘we will not forgive.’ I do not accept this at all.”
Bennett recalled that during the time of the assassination, he was serving as commander of a battalion in the elite Maglan unit. “I felt as if there was an attempt to turn all of the opponents of Oslo into outcasts, who are somehow responsible for the murder. Now, 18 years later, I think we have overcome that, and this is a good thing. It is OK to denounce the assassination of Rabin, and yet disagree with the political path that he led.”
Elected in 1992, the Labor government under Rabin held secret negotiations with the PLO terror organization in Oslo, Norway, which led to the signing of an agreement that allowed the group’s leadership to take over parts of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and to receive arms. The agreement was ratified in the Knesset by the use of political tricks that induced members of a right-wing party to abandon the opposition benches and join the government.
Two years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Hamas carried out its first suicide attack on a bus in Israel. A few years later, a murderous terror war broke out, which killed 1,178 Israelis in 2000-2009, 70% of them civilians, in over 20,000 attacks that included 144 suicide bombings.
If Iran has nuclear weapons, it will pose a threat not just to Israel but to the entire free world, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) has warned.
Speaking with Fox News on the weekend, Bennett reiterated that Israel would “love to see a peaceful resolution” to the Iranian nuclear issue, but added that “Iran has a very clear track record of actions they’re taking right now. As we speak, they’re enriching uranium. As we speak, they’re accelerating the pace of installing new centrifuges. As we speak, these guys, together with Bashar Al-Assad’s regime are butchering tens of thousands of Syrian civilians.”
Bennett warned that “a few smiles cannot hide what we’re talking about.” He added that “words in Geneva don’t stop those centrifuges from spinning in Tehran.”
“I want to make a point,” stressed Bennett. “This is not an issue of Israel. This is an issue for the entire world. Iran’s missiles today reach London and Rome and Madrid, and just imagine if we wake up tomorrow with a nuclear test successfully achieved in Tehran. It means we’re in a whole new dark and dangerous world.”
The sanctions on Iran must be held up and increased, said Bennett, because “the sanctions are what brought [President Hassan] Rouhani to the table to begin with, and only by being persistent do we have any chance of avoiding the need of any potential attack.”
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