Marzel: Fatah gov't can be bought off with money

Tells 'Ma'an' he would kill Abbas if necessary; claims Hebron Jewish community will only grow.

By TALIA DEKEL
baruch marzel 298.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
baruch marzel 298.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
In a rare interview with Palestinian news agency Ma'an published late Wednesday, former Kach member Baruch Marzel called Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's government a group able to be bought off with money and said he would not hesitate to kill the chairman if need be. "I do not like him [Abbas], and if I had to, I would assassinate him. But at present he is not fighting us. The moment [his government] begins to fight us, they will be just like Hamas. Marzel noted that he thought Hamas was a "problematic force," because of its deep religious beliefs. Abbas's Fatah party, however, could easily be bribed and therefore posed a lesser threat to Israel. Marzel, a resident of Hebron since 1984, told his Ma'an interviewer that Hebron's Jewish community would only grow, adding that 10 additional families would join the settlement. "Sooner or later there will be great emigration of Palestinians and more Jews will come, and this is a positive direction," claimed Marzel. "We estimate that the number of Arabs that will leave is approximately 40,000. In all of Judea and Samaria [Palestinians are] leaving and in the end there will be no Palestinian state. There will be two million Jews in Judea and Samaria, and we will remove those that refuse to fight with us," said Marzel. Asked whether he thought the 1929 Pogrom in Hebron - during which 67 Jews were massacred - could repeat itself, Marzel said that the Jewish community was preparing for such an event and that it had stocked up with arms and was training. Marzel cited terror attacks and attempted terror attacks against the Jews of Hebron after his interviewer mentioned that relations between Palestinians and Jews in the West Bank city had calmed over the last year. "There were attempted stabbings, explosive devices thrown and shots fired in the area. The situation at present is not calm." Marzel also accused international forces deployed in the area of paying Palestinians to complain against the town's Jews. "For one hundred dollars they [Palestinians] are prepared to say that their mother was killed… every week their mother is killed. We are not prepared to be the ones who are suffering. You invited Christians and missionaries who are trying to bring Christianity into Hebron." He said. Asked what the Jews of Hebron would do if forced to leave, Marzel claimed that they were there to stay, and would fight to do so. According to Marzel, Palestinians did not want the Jews to leave as "they have seen what life is like in places that [Israeli-Jews] have left, referring to post-disengagement Gaza.