Arab MK on Ari Fuld: There'd be less deaths if settlers left West Bank

'It’s just like saying to me, 'If you do not go with a bikini, you won’t get raped.'' Likud MK Haskel charged back.

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Updated: OCTOBER 5, 2018 03:32
MK Aida Touma-Suleiman's remarks about Ari Fuld, October 4, 2018 (Yoni Ozeri/NRG)
Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman suggested that there would be fewer deaths if settlers moved out of the West Bank, during a highly charged Knesset meeting on Wednesday about gun licensing as discussion swung to the death of Ari Fuld, who was murdered by a terrorist last month at the Gush Etzion junction.
“Many terror attacks have been stopped by civilians carrying weapons such as the hero Ari Fuld, who with his body and life prevented the killing of additional innocent civilians,” said Likud MK Sharren Haskel, at the session of the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women and Gender Equality.
Committee chair Touma-Sliman responded: “Do you know how many lives would be saved if the settlers left [the West Bank]?”
Subsequently, Haskel accused Touma-Sliman of victim-blaming: “It’s just like saying to me, ‘If you do not go with a bikini, you won’t get raped.’ No Jew deserves to be murdered, not if he’s walking around Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Gush Etzion.”
Touma-Sliman rejected this comparison, responding: “To go with a bikini is her right. To settle and steal land is not a right.”
Likud MK Amir Ohana also mentioned Fuld during the discussion, saying:  “Between mid-2015 and mid-2016, only in the Jerusalem area, 11 attacks were thwarted by private arms carriers – not policemen, not soldiers, private weapons carriers. They were thwarted like what happened a few weeks ago with Ari Fuld.”
“Meaning execution on the spot,” Touma-Sliman interjected.
“What is an execution? When someone murders he has to be shot and killed so he won’t kill more people,” Ohana retorted. “Madam, women are also threatened by these acts of murders. Women have also been killed.”
“I know and I regret that ordinary people have to pay the price for crazy policy led by the government,” Touma-Sliman answered.
The purpose of the Knesset committee meeting was to discuss the recent gun licensing reform that drastically increased the number of civilians eligible to receive gun licenses.
The new criteria for obtaining a gun license makes hundreds of thousands of IDF infantry unit veterans eligible to receive firearms licenses. In addition, officers and commanders will not be required to return their arms and weapons after they are released from reserve duty.
Touma-Sliman appealed to Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to freeze approval of the reform until the committee makes its recommendations, and to expand the number of parties sitting in the supervision and control committee set up by the ministry on the issue.


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