Releasing a statement to the press, Rahat Mayor Faiz Abu Sahiban announced that Ichud HaLeumi MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari is unwelcome in his community. Ben-Ari announced that he and colleague Baruch Marzel, one of his Knesset aides, will be visiting the community.

As was the case with an announced right-wing Israeli flag parade in the Israeli Arab community of Um el-Fahm, Sahiban announced that if the right-wingers attempt to visit his community, it will result in conflict, as he stated in a letter to Minister of Public Security Yitzchak Aharonovitch.

The letter stressed that the majority of Rahat residents are young, teenagers, and a visit from the “extremist right-wing community” would lead to rioting and violence.

Ben-Ari, Marzel and Itamar Ben-Givir, Ben-Ari’s Knesset aide, wish to highlight the widespread illegal construction in the Arab/Bedouin sector, to which the government turns a blind eye, while focusing on every move by Jews, especially throughout Yehuda and Shomron.

Ben-Givir also rejected statements from Sahiban regarding his reference to pro-Eretz Yisrael activists as “extremists”, adding such rhetoric however will just increase their determination to visit the area.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)