PM responds to stabbing: Palestinian incitement must stop

Likud hardliners call to stop negotiations after soldier Eden Attias is murdered on a bus by a Palestinian teen.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Netanyahu speaks at the knesset 370 (photo credit: Courtesy - GPO)
Netanyahu speaks at the knesset 370
(photo credit: Courtesy - GPO)
There cannot be peace as Palestinian incitement continues, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset, hours after a Palestinian teen stabbed soldier Eden Atias near Afula Wednesday.
"Surrounding the murderer is an education system, official Palestinian Authority newspapers, mosques and other places in Palestinian society that are full of incitement," Netanyahu said. "If we want real peace, the incitement has to stop."
Earlier Wednesday, lawmakers in Netanyahu's party called for him to stop peace talks.
"The talks are deluding both the Israeli public and the Arabs," Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon said. "We must stop this predictable crash course immediately."
Danon also called to stop the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely said "the Palestinian Authority's well-oiled incitement system continues to claim victims."
"[PA President] Mahmoud Abbas has a tactic of indirectly harming Israel. Jews aren't killed by PA officials but by the 'Palestinian street,' which is fed each day by anti-Israel propaganda. We cannot continue talking peace while the PA is talking terror," Hotovely added.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni sent her condolences to the soldier's family and wrote on Facebook that now is not the time for political arguments.
However, she added that "violence will not bring diplomatic achievements. We will fight terror and extremism without compromise."
Opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich also said said her heart goes out to the soldier's family and that she trusts the IDF in its fight against terror.

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The Labor leader called on Netanyahu not to use the attack "to continue sabotaging negotiations, which anyway are bruised and battered taking place under the shadow of a crisis with the US."
Bayit Yehudi MKs also spoke out against concessions in negotiations, with Knesset Finance Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky saying the stabbing "is a direct result of Israel's policy of freeing terrorists."
"We make difficult concessions for which we pay in human lives, while the Palestinians only talk," he stated. "The current situation endangers our sons and daughters while the PA celebrates the release of murderers. This is intolerable and must stop immediately."
MK Motti Yogev (Bayit Yehudi) said the attack was a result of the IDF not doing enough to stop Palestinians from illegally entering Israel.
"When PA incitement teaches hatred of Jews and calls to destroy us...our security forces must enforce the law and realize that they can prevent the next murder," he remarked.
Almagor Terror Victims Organization chairman Meir Indor said "we cannot ignore what is behind the recent chain of terror attacks. It is encouraged by the American government, which threatens the obedient Israeli government if they do not release terrorists."
"The lives of Jews are not as important to [US Secretary of State] John Kerry as the residents of Boston. He wouldn't have released the Chechen terrorist," Indor added, in reference to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected Boston Marathon bomber.