Politicians on Right call for escalation in Gaza

Likud MKs call to cut off electricity and water in Gaza; lawmakers on Left say time is ripe for a peace treaty.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's Facebook post featuring Ismail Haniyeh. (photo credit: FACEBOOK)
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's Facebook post featuring Ismail Haniyeh.
(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
Transportation Minister Israel Katz posted a photo of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Facebook on Wednesday with crosshairs around his head.
“It is clear – a partial solution will not help! Instructions to the IDF must be clear: Remove the threat of missiles and crush the snake’s head,” Katz wrote.
“Not almost and not approximately. We must go all the way.”
Similarly, Shas chairman Arye Deri said “a sovereign country cannot allow a group of terrorists to run its life. We must cut off the serpent’s head. Every Hamas member should know he could die.”
Shas held a faction meeting in Ashdod on Wednesday, and Deri said the party supports the government and there is no division between the coalition or opposition at this time.
“I get the impression that the prime minister and security cabinet are using good judgment,” Deri said.
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) called for Israel to immediately cut off electricity and fuel to Gaza.
“It can’t be that we’re fighting Hamas while at the same time providing the electricity and fuel to transport the missiles that are being shot at us,” Danon said. He added that the IDF must use every means possible to make Hamas want a cease-fire.
Likud MK Moshe Feiglin echoed Danon, writing on Facebook: “Why is there still electricity, water and food in Gaza?” “As long as we bury our heads in the sand and don’t make the population that calls to destroy us pay a price, we will continue living under a constant existential threat,” Feiglin wrote.
“We don’t need to put one soldier in Gaza. We don’t even have to blow up their houses and empty spaces. We need to just stop the electricity, water, food and medicines until they drop on their knees until they destroy all of their rockets and weapons. We should also let those who want to leave to another country go.”
MK Motti Yogev (Bayit Yehudi) called for the IDF to reconquer the Gaza Strip.
“What will protect the people of Israel? What will deter our enemy?” he wrote on Facebook.
According to Yogev, the IDF must use its advantage from the air to destroy the heads of terrorist organizations in Gaza, all the while training ground troops to prepare to invade if necessary.
“The disengagement from Gaza nine years ago brought us the hail of missiles, which grew stronger between each round of fighting,” he said. “If it weren’t for the Iron Dome they could have been much more deadly. We won’t have a choice but to eventually contain Gaza again by isolating it from the South and controlling it like we do Judea and Samaria.”
On the Left, Meretz chairwoman Zehava Gal-On took to Facebook on Wednesday to say military action cannot stop terrorism.
“The rocket attacks are terrorism and Israel must stop them,” she wrote, “but terrorism will not be stopped by attacks from the air and we won’t put an end to it by using force.”
Gal-On added: “Someone is confused. Someone forgot that it doesn’t work. Every time the government promises to stop the rocket threat...
we find out within a few months that Hamas got stronger and the threat is already reaching Haifa. For every terrorist, we are bringing another three or four siblings and children who want revenge that will be happy to take his place.
Fire brings fire. Shooting brings shooting.”
The real task, according to Gal-On, is to ignore warmongers and bring a cease-fire with international help and then accept the Arab League Peace Plan to end the conflict with the Palestinians.
MK Nachman Shai (Labor) called for a peace treaty, but said the government has behaved responsibly thus far.
“Israel was forced into this fight without wanting it,” Shai explained. “We need to act with determination and strength to take down Hamas and create significant deterrence now and in the future. At the same time, we need to offer the Palestinian Authority and [President Mahmoud Abbas] a renewal in negotiations.
“Military efforts should catalyze the efforts to reach a longterm agreement with the Palestinians,” he added.
According to MK Dov Henin (Hadash), only a treaty with the Palestinians – not a war – will bring peace.
“What is crashing down before us at the moment is not the peace process, which never began, but the fantasy of the status quo,” Henin said. “The thought that we can continue the occupation, continue building settlements, continue not moving toward an agreement without any consequences...
The bubble of the status quo has popped.”
Meanwhile, MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) shopped for groceries in Sderot in order to support small businesses that are plagued by rocket fire and called for all of Israel to do the same.
“You will surely get a warm welcome,” he wrote on Facebook. “Our unity is our strength.”