Tourism Minister: If they lose war, Arabs will be expelled
Ha’aretz, 18. December 2001
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Tourism Minister Binyamin Elon of the far-right National Union said Tuesday that if the Palestinians continue their violence against Israel and are defeated, they will ultimately be expelled from their homes, adding that he personally was aiding “Judaization” in aiding Arabs in East Jerusalem and elsewhere to emigrate to the United States.
Elon, the chairman of the National Union’s Moledet wing, became tourism minister after the October assassination of Moledet founder Rehavam Ze’evi. A rabbi, he first rose to prominence as the head of an East Jerusalem yeshiva built on land captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.
Although Ze’evi openly advocated “transfer” of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he generally spoke of “voluntary transfer” or “transfer by choice” rather than expulsion.
“If they do not stop the war that they initiated, they must understand that there is no such thing as a luxury war (a war without suffering or consequences), and that when they lose the war, they will be expelled from here, in the course of the war, all of them, plain and simple,” Elon told Army Radio, adding that:
“A people which opens a war against us must understand that if it loses the war, it will cost them, and the price will be expulsion. Just as their leaders led them into Naqba (Arabic for the Catastrophe of the Israeli victory) in ’48, Arafat, the irrelevant, the wicked, this murderer, is leading into a disaster, and they must understand this. They must throw him the heck out.”
A total of 1,000 Israelis have been killed or wounded since the Palestinian uprising began in late 2000, Elon said. “There’s a limit. They (the Palestinians) have to decide whether they want to live peaceably with us, or to expel us from our land. It is they who will be expelled, not us.”
He said many Palestinians had already left East Jerusalem and the territories, some with the active aid of rightist Jews. “I personally take part in this. There are people for whom I make sure they receive compensation. They leave their houses in Jerusalem and in other places, and move to America or other places. This is a positive thing and it should be encouraged.”
“This happens all the time,” Elon continued. “There are houses in Jerusalem in which I, thank the Lord, am an active partner in their Judaization.”
Asked when was the last time an East Jerusalem family recently pulled up stakes and moved to America, Elon replied: “There are several. Here in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood there are a few, and in other neighborhoods. I don’t want to list all the names, because they sometimes have their own personal distress, but they are no longer here, and today Jews live in the houses.”
Elon said a quiet majority of Israelis supported transfer and believed that it would be the ultimately result of continued fighting.
“It’s true that the government has not yet decided on transfer, but the majority of the people understands that this is the solution that will be, and that this will be the result caused by the war, and the one who has caused this to happen to them (the Palestinians) will be Arafat himself.”
“If they make war on us and do not willing to stop and we call on them again and again to make peace, and they are unwilling to stop, then just as the War of Liberation ended with a demographic and geographic change, so too will this war.”
Elon, the chairman of the National Union’s Moledet wing, became tourism minister after the October assassination of Moledet founder Rehavam Ze’evi. A rabbi, he first rose to prominence as the head of an East Jerusalem yeshiva built on land captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.
Although Ze’evi openly advocated “transfer” of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he generally spoke of “voluntary transfer” or “transfer by choice” rather than expulsion.
On Sunday, National Union leaders held a meeting to decided whether to remain in the government. Elon was among the party figures arguing strongly for staying a part of the government, arguing that large-scale IDF ground and air operations against Arafat’s Authority and suspected terrorist targets were proof that the government was finally coming around to the hard line espoused by the National Union.
“Today my sense is that Foreign Minister Peres and his (Labor party) comrades are mulling whether to leave the government. And they should be the ones to leave the government, if someone needs to go, and disturb the unity (government) and not me, because my feeling today is that I have influence in this government.”