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Israel Takes New Steps to Stem Terror Wave
(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Israel's security cabinet met Wednesday to discuss further steps to tamp down the current wave of Palestinian terror. Among those steps were surrounding and, where needed, enforcing a closure of Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Minister Yuval Steinitz said that steps such as demolishing the homes of terrorists and not allowing them to be rebuilt at the original site were intended to impress upon the terrorists that "if you destroy the life of another family, it will not bring rewards - not for the terrorist, nor for the people who support or celebrate it." Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold dismissed the argument that clamping a closure on some Arab neighborhoods was the beginning of the "re-division of Jerusalem." "Israel will adopt the measures necessary to bring about quiet," Gold said. The moves approved by the security cabinet were "the legitimate instruments of a democracy seeking to defend itself, using proportionality, restrained measures and not changing in any way the status quo on the Temple Mount." Steinitz responded to criticism that Israel was engaging in "extrajudicial executions" when police or soldiers kill attackers, saying that no one ever accused the French police of carrying out "executions" after they killed terrorists in Paris.