About 18 opposition members of the Knesset demanded yesterday that Defense Minister Moshe Arens reprimand outgoing Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan for remarks likening West Bank Arabs to “drugged roaches.” Arens has indicated he will not.
Eitan, due to retire later this month, was quoted as telling the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Tuesday that for every stone-throwing incident by Arab youths on the West Bank, 10 new settlements should be built, and “When we have settled the land all the Arabs will be able to do about it is to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle.”
In a telegram to Arens, the MKs charged that “The Chief of Staff caused considerable damage to the image of the Israel Defense Force when he compared Arabs to ‘drugged cockroaches’. These comments constitute a shocking and severe phenomenon which cannot be ignored by whoever has concern for the image of society in Israel and the image of the IDF.”
Likud MK Dror Seigermann said he was shocked. He said he had returned an invitation to attend a “salute” for Eitan event because the general’s comments made him unworthy of such a salute.
Arens, in a television interview last night, refused comment except to say that Eitan was a “national hero” and he did not want to mar his last days in the army.
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