Settlers say will fight freeze with all their might

Yesha Council chairman expresses reservations over remark made by deputy settlement head that temporary construction halt needed to combat Iranian threat. 'There is no justification for this,' he says. Samaria Settlers' Committee: We don’t buy PM's excuses for racist decision

Ynet reporters |Published: 12.08.09 , 00:52

Settler leaders on Monday night expressed their reservations over a remark made by Motti Yogev, deputy head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, who said that his fellow settlers must accept the construction freeze and understand that it is needed in light of the growing Iranian threat and the need to recruit an international coalition to fight it.

"We will continue the struggle with the same determination and power we have been running it so far," Yesha Council Chairman Danny Dayan told Ynet.

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Dayan said in response, "I disagree with Motti Yogev. There is no justification for a policy which does not allow us to build one Jewish home from the borders of Afula to the borders of Arad. I don’t accept the presumption that there are hidden things here.

"The prime minister himself has said that the reason for the freeze is to prove that the Arabs refuse peace and nothing else, and this is why we shall continue the struggle, including a mass protest outside the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday evening."

Yossi Dagan of the Samaria Settlers' Committee said, "I have a lot of respect for Motti Yogev," but added harsh words to the attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The equation that the Jews must pay for their right to live is an anti-Semitic statement," he said.

Dagan added that "not one serious person really buys the Iranian excuse. Those who cannot stand the pressure will always make up an Iranian threat or a war in Iraq or in Afghanistan as an excuse. The nation doesn't buy the prime minister's miserable excuses and most people object, in all polls, to the racist deception of the freeze order."

The Mateh Binyamin Regional Council said in a statement that the remarks ascribed to Yogev do not reflect the council's stand.

Yogev said earlier at a Jerusalem conference, "What I'm saying here may get me in trouble, but perhaps we should bend a little, especially when we are talking about a limited period of 10 months."

He later asked to clarify his remarks. "What I said was that the need for a temporary freeze could have been accepted for the sake of a strategic alliance for the State of Israel's coping abilities," he told Ynet, "but this should have been done through a dialogue with the settlement heads and with a solution for the education and natural growth needs."