MK Moshe Feiglin (LIkud) said Tuesday that Israel’s response to continued Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities – in light of Egypt’s ceasefire offer, which Israel accepted this morning – should be the total re-conquest of the Strip.
“All this ‘victory’ talk following the ceasefire makes me very sad. If we’d scored such a great victory, there would be no need to explain that it’s a victory. We surrendered to a terrorist gang, and now we are being humiliated by yet another rocket barrage. All large Israeli cities – Tel Aviv, Beer Sheva, Haifa – have been targeted and attacked by a small terror organization in Gaza, (and we can’t do anything but settle for a ceasefire).
“But we call this “victory.” I can’t call it anything but “surrender,” Feiglin said.
Speaking to the Knesset TV Channel, Feiglin asked whether Israel, as a society, is prepared to “win,” or whether Israeli society plans to just roll from loss to loss, from humiliation to humiliation.
“Look, you’ve got to understand: This cease fire is a grand opening to the next round of fighting. And there is no reason that next round shouldn’t include non-conventional weapons. How hard is it to put together a few mustard seeds (to make poison gas) and stick them onto a rocket? what are you going to say then?
Feiglin went on to note that “before Oslo, before Peres’ and Beilin’s “peace”, the IDF went around (taking away) four kalachnikov rifles in Gaza. No one dreamed about rocket attacks on Tel Aviv.”
In order to reign in the rockets, Feiglin said Israel must return and conquer the Gaza Strip, not only to restore security to Israeli civilians,but because Israel has a right to settle and live in the Land of Israel.
“The point of this operation should have been to return to our land, and also to Gaza, the part of Eretz Yisrael that we ran away from. (Gaza) continues to pursue us, and will continue to pursue us until we come to realise, ‘Yes, this is our land,and YES! (We must) re-conquer Gaza.’ We have to go back to Gaza because it is our land, because it is the right thing to do.
What? have you forgotten how terrible it was with soldiers in gaza?
“No, haven’t forgotten. but our situation was much better – nobody in Tel Aviv hiding in bomb shelters when IDF patrolled Gaza. Situation was much better before demoralisation from within began to affect Israeli society. That began because of a view that we were ‘colonialists’ in Gaza, not because we were there because it was our land. Same for Nablus and Ramallah – we never applied Israeli sovereignty to the parts of the Land of Israel that are in our hands.
“If population and demographics are the determining factors for the national borders, what are we doing in the Galilee? What are we doing in Jaffa? Nazareth? Let’s first understand that this is our land. Then we’ll deal with population and demographic questions. It’s all a question of approach,” Feiglin said.