Intelligence Minister Meridor
Intelligence Minister MeridorIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor (Likud) denied there is terror in Yehudah and Shomron (Judea and Samaria), despite recent attacks, and said Israel must back the Palestinian Authority (PA) to satisfy expectations because "creating hopes and then frustrating them is very dangerous."

 

Speaking at the fall conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Intelligence Minister stated, “There is no terror. The economic position in Judea and Samaria is improving every day."

 

Meridor represents the dovish wing of the Likud and in the past, he has contradicted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s campaign pledge last year that the Golan Heights should remain under Israeli sovereignty. Meridor stated that Israel should consider surrendering the strategic area in return for a peace treaty with Syria.

 

See no evil?
His statement that there is no terror in Yehudah and Shomron came one day after Arab terrorists seriously injured an Arab with firebombs and rocks near the Jewish community of Beit Haggai, immediately south of Hevron.

 

Two Israelis were wounded in September from a firebombing attack and sniper fire. The number of attacks in Yehudah and Shomron in September rose from 32 in August to 38 in September.  

 

In addition, a senior IDF officer told Arutz Sheva last week that weapons are flowing freely into Shechem and other PA-controlled towns in Shomron following the recent removal of IDF checkpoints.  .

 

Minister Meridor was unable to explain his statement to Arutz Sheva because his plane was en route from Washington to Israel.

 

According to analysts, U.S. President Barack Obama has raised the hopes of the PA to create a new Arab state on all of the land of eastern Jerusalem, Yehudah and Shomron, including the OldCity and Jerusalem’s predominantly Jewish neighborhoods of Ramot, French Hill and others.