I know it's election season and everything, but seriously?
The minister, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and an outspoken critic of Israel’s Arab population, made the controversial remarks on Sunday in a speech to an election rally held in the western Israeli city of Herzliya ahead of the March 17 vote.
"Those who are with us deserve everything, but those who are against us deserve to have their heads chopped off with an axe," the ultra-nationalist politician said.
http://www.newsweek.com/...
The foreign minister is Avigdor Lieberman, from Moldova. Let's remember that he's talking about Arab citizens of Israel, whose families lived there since before Israel even existed. Also let's remember that it's the 21st century and that Israel is a first-world "democracy."
Lieberman is also in favor of transferring these citizens out of Israel and repeated the sentiment in his Sunday remarks about beheadings.
"There is no reason for Umm al-Fahm to be part of the State of Israel," Lieberman said about a northern Israeli town populated by Arab citizens of Israel, according to the Channel 2 report. "Citizens of the State of Israel who raise a black flag on Nakba Day – from my perspective, they can leave, and I'm very happily willing to donate them to Abu Mazen," he said, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
http://www.haaretz.com/...
"Arab" Israelis, or Palestinian Israelis as they prefer to be called, make up 20% of the citizenry of Israel. Compare that with African Americans making up 13% of the US citizenry, and ask yourself if you could imagine a US cabinet member calling for the beheading of African Americans disloyal to the US for railing against the glaring inequalities here. And then expecting to get a lot of votes for it.
It's definitely incitement, and very very ugly. But hey, that's Israel, one of our besties in the region and the #1 recipient of foreign aid from us.