Netanyahu praises Friedman for expressing 'straightforward' truth

US envoy tweets that Tuesday’s terrorist attack and Palestinian reactions are why there is no peace

By HERB KEINON
Updated: JANUARY 11, 2018 11:16
Funeral of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, murdered in West Bank terror attack shooting, January 10, 2017 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Funeral of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, murdered in West Bank terror attack shooting, January 10, 2017
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US Ambassador David Friedman for articulating the “unvarnished” truth on Wednesday when he tweeted that terrorism and the Palestinian reaction to it are the reasons there is no peace.
“An Israeli father of six was killed last night in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards,” Friedman wrote on his Twitter account in reaction to the murder of Raziel Shevach. “Look no further to why there is no peace.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanks US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman for tweeting the truth about Havat Gilad terror shooting and the Palestinian"s funding of terrorists, January 10, 2018
Friedman has some 61,100 followers on his Twitter account.
Netanyahu, at a brief conference with foreign journalists on Wednesday evening, said he wanted to congratulate Friedman for expressing the “unvarnished, straightforward truth.”
Friedman said “important things,” the prime minister declared. “The important thing is that the Abbas government is supporting the kind of murderers who murder the father of six.”
Netanyahu said the Palestinian Authority pays $355 million a year to terrorists in Israeli jail, and their families. “That is something that is untenable.”
The prime minister said he is not concerned that if US aid is cut off to the PA because of its refusal to negotiate or because of its payment to terrorists and their families, it will collapse.
“I think they should redirect their funds to other things,” he said.
“Funding and incentifying murder doesn’t exactly advance peace,” he said. “This is the principle they are communicating to their people, kill Israelis and get rich. What kind of message does that send to impressionable Palestinian children?”
Netanyahu challenged the journalists to write about the PA funding to terrorists in Israeli jails, as well as about the money his government is spending on the Arab sector in Israel, and the “extremism and dangerous aggression of the dangerous Iranian regime.”
Netanyahu asked the journalists in the room to raise their hands if they, or their outlets, called the Iranian leadership “moderate” in the last year.
“Call me old-fashioned,” he said. “But I don’t think there is anything particularly moderate about calling for the destruction of Israel, jailing journalists, beating students in the streets, or shooting demonstrators in the streets.”