Labor hopeful says Israel should ’kick out’ Palestinians in future war |
Departing from his party’s long-held dovish stances, former IDF general Amiram Levin urges expansion of settlements, says Israel was ’too nice’ in the Six Day War
By RAOUL WOOTLIFF
The Times of Israel
▻https://www.timesofisrael.com/labor-hopeful-says-israel-should-kick-out-palestinians-in-future-war
Appearing to call for ethnic cleansing, a retired IDF general seeking to become a key figure in the left-leaning Labor party said that if the Palestinians continue to violate their agreements with Israel, the military should “tear them apart” in a future war and forcibly transfer them to “the other side of the Jordan River.”
Amiram Levin criticized longstanding left-wing policies, espoused the expansion of Jewish settlements and called for the rejection of the 1967 borders, in excerpts published Wednesday from an interview with the Maariv daily set to appear on Friday.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP
“The Palestinians caused the occupation. They didn’t accept the borders of the partition plan [after the 1948 War of Independence], and they started the war [of 1967]. We were right to take Judea and Samaria,” he said, referring to the West Bank.
“We need to engage in tough negotiations that do not take us back to the ’67 borders,” Levin said of Israel’s pre-Six Day War borders, which negotiators have generally agreed will form the basis for partitioning the land under a future peace agreement.
“We will give [the Palestinians] a carrot in the form of a state, and if they don’t want it, we will tear them apart,” he said. “I have said many times in the past that next time we have a war, they will no longer remain here, we will kick them out to the other side of the Jordan River. That’s how we need to fight. We were too nice in ’67.”
Levin ran an aborted campaign in July’s Labor leadership race, and has since been touted as one of the party’s security experts by new leader Avi Gabbay. In a sign of his unofficial status in the party, last month Levin escorted Gabbay on a trip with Labor lawmakers to the Gaza border.