The head of the Arab Joint List, MK Ayman Odeh issued a statement Thursday morning condemning Wednesday night’s terror attack on the upscale Tel Aviv Sarona Center.
“I condemn this horrific attack on civilians. (My) heart goes out to the families. Harming innocents is always condemned; there is no [justice to this] and there can be no justification for shooting civilians in the street,” he said. Four Israelis were killed and four more critically injured in the attack. One of the killers was shot and wounded by a police officer; he is in serious condition at Ichilov Hospital. The second was tracked down and arrested; he is undergoing interrogation. Both are 21-year-old cousins from the Palestinian Authority village of Yatta, in the southern Hebron Hills area of Judea.
But Odeh’s condemnation of the violence was qualified: he blamed the Jews, and specifically the Netanyahu administration for the attack. “The government is only intensifying hate and violence. All Israeli and Palestinian civilians should be removed from this circle of horror and blood,” he said.
Further, his remedy for ending the terror is to end the existence of the communities in which more than half a million Jews are living. “We must fight together in a just way to bring an end to the occupation, (and usher in an era) of justice and peace for the two peoples,” he added.
The “occupation” is a reference to Israel’s continued presence in areas of Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights won during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and parts of Jerusalem that were restored to the capital in those defensive conflicts in 1967 and 1973.
Both the Golan Heights and those areas of Jerusalem have long since become official parts of the State of Israel, as legally annexed to the state by the Knesset, although neither action was accepted by the international community.