End the Israeli Occupation! But How?

An Arab MK who compared Palestinian Arab terrorists to Jews fighting the British for Israel’s independence is “correct,” Former Likud MK and Zehut party leader Moshe Feiglin opined Tuesday.

“We must thank (MK) Zouheir Bahloul,” Feiglin stated, in a special interview with Arutz Sheva. “He held up a mirror to us and challenged us.”

“We can no longer avoid it, because he essentially asked – and he’s right – what’s the difference between Etzel fighters who killed British officers [in British mandate ‘Palestine’, before Israel’s independence – ed.], and terrorists who aim to injure soldiers?” he continued.

Feiglin noted that both the Left, which condemned Bahloul’s remarks, and the Right, which currently run the government, do not have a clear answer for Bahloul.

“According to the Left’s perspective, we are the occupiers, and anyone who tries to harm a soldier is a true freedom fighter,” he said. “But the Right, too, has a problem: he who rules over [Judea-Samaria] is a military commander, not the State of Israel.”

“Terrorists are born into the reality that he who is sovereign over the area is the military – which means it’s ‘occupied,’ thus making him a true freedom fighter.”

The only true answer to Bahloul, he insisted, is to establish full Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

“The ideological Right says: this is our land – Hevron is ours, and not terrorists’,” he said. “We have to enact sovereignty in every area [of the Land of Israel – ed.], and the only [party] which says this is the Zehut party – to establish sovereignty over every last blade of grass.”

Only then, Feiglin maintained, can the Right “tell Bahloul that he is lying and that a terrorist is not a freedom fighter.”

Dangerous equivalencies 

Bahloul raised an uproar earlier this week, when he claimed that Israel is not Israeli Arabs’ country, and claimed attackers who kill soldiers are not terrorists.

“I want to remind you that, before 1948, the British Mandate was here,” he said, during an event in Acre (Akko) discussing the terrorist controversially shot dead in Hevron.

“The Etzel (also known as the Irgun), the Lehi, the Hagana and all the Jewish organizations took to the streets against the Mandate in order to bring about your state. Are the Palestinians not allowed to do so?”

Bahloul further added that he makes a distinction between soldiers and civilians.

“I have said that anyone who attacks innocents, who enters a house where children and women are sleeping, and cut short their lives can be described in any terms, including terrorist,” he said. “But soldiers? They are the symbol of the occupation.”

“What should Palestinians do after suffering under the occupation for 49 years, after losing their lives, after searching for their freedom and independence and not receiving anything? They see the soldiers are symbols of the occupation.”