Defense Minister Moshe Arens yesterday defended the enlargement of the Jewish area in heavily Arab populated Hebron in the West Bank, saying that even the Arab populashould be interested in that settlement.
Speaking to a gathering here of Emunah, the national religious women’s organization, Arens said the Arabs should welcome the Jewish settlers because this “would eradicate the blow of the terrible Arab pogrom in the Jewish population in 1929.”
“I think that there is considerable understanding amongst many of the Arab population in Hebron,” Arens contended, “that it is right and proper and even in their own interest, that that destruction and that act of carnage that took place in 1929 should not remain the last word and that the Jewish quarter in Hebron should be re-established.”
Arens’ remarks were in defense of the secret arrival last Wednesday night at a hilltop inside Hebron overlooking the Jewish cemetery of four caravans and later four Jewish families of Jews to occupy the caravans. The settlers claimed that their action had the approval of the Defense Minister.
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