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Itongadol.- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed responsibility for Wednesday morning\’s stabbing attack in Tel Aviv on the shoulders of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for allowing vicious incitement against Israel.
“This same terrorism tries to hit us in Paris, Brussels, and elsewhere,” he said.
Netanyahu and Abbas walked together in the front line in the massive march against terrorism in Paris two weeks ago.
Netanyahu pointed out that Hamas quickly praised the attack, the same Hamas that Abbas has as a partner in his government.
“This is the same Hamas that has announced that it will file a petition against Israel at the International Criminal Court in the Hague,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Abbas is responsible for both the incitement and the dangerous move at the ICC.”
Netanyahu spoke to the commander of the Nachshon unit whose men neutralized the terrorist and praised them for their determined action that saved lives.
“We will continue to act with force against terrorism that has tried to hit us since the establishment of the state, and we will make sure that it does not achieve its goals,” Netanyahu said.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the terrorist who carried out the stabbing attack in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning is part of the same wide movement whose goal is simply to undermine the right of the Jews to live in a state of their own.
Those behind this attack, he said, are the same as those who stood behind the recent riots in Rahat and the wave of attacks last month in Jerusalem: Abbas, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Raed Salah from the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Arab Mks Haneen Zoabi, Ahmed Tibi, “and their partners.”
They are all part of the same movement that wants to eliminate Israel, he said, and there is no difference for them between “Judea, Samaria, the Negev, the Galilee, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.”
“We have to act decisively against all those people who operate under different names on different levels, but who all have the same purpose: to kill Jews and eliminate Israel,” he said.
Labor leader Isaac Herzog said that terrorism must be fought with determination. "Israeli citizens do not feel secure today, not by the Gaza border and not in Tel Aviv," Herzog wrote on Facebook. "That reality must change."
The Labor leader said a gap between declarations and slogans about security, and Israelis\’ precarious sense of security is intolerable.
"We will change this with determined and assertive action towards terrorist organizations and their heads," he wrote.
Herzog expressed support for the IDF, Shin Bet, and police in an "uncompromising war on terror, in any place where there is a threat on Israelis," and wished a speedy recovery to the victims of the attack.
According to Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, Abbas is to blame for the stabbing. "The person who is responsible for the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv is the same man who was seen marching with world leaders just a week ago in Paris," Bennett stated. "When Abbas incites against Jews on TV day and night, when Abbas names town squares after murderers and gives monetary prizes to those who murder Jews, he is turning himself into a knife dealer and the terrorists are his emissaries."
Bennett called for the government to stop the flow of money to "the terrorist Abbas" as long as he continues funding terrorists\’ families.
"Words are not enough," he added.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yariv Levin (Likud) said the attack is another reminder that Israel is in a continuing battle and that terrorist organizations continue to plan attacks and attempt to enact them.
"Terrorist organizations are not on an election recess," unlike the Knesset, Levin said. "We will continue to fight them freely even at this time, with responsibility and a clear message to the other side that we are alert to defending our citizens and settle accounts with those who seek to harm us."
Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On called the stabbing "an awful attack against innocent people on the way to work," and wished the victims a speedy recovery.
"We must use all means necessary to prevent the next terrorist attack," she said. "I call on all politicians not to incite or heat things up for cynical campaign needs. The only way to deal with terrorism is to deal with what motivates it."