26 Sep, 2015
Rabin in 1976 Interview: Settlements Are a Cancer – Ha’aretz
Former (Israeli) Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called the settlers “a cancer” and warned against Israel’s becoming an apartheid state in an interview recorded during his first term as prime minister in 1976.
The recording was included in segments of a new film, titled “Rabin in His Own Words,” which were screened on Israeli TV on Thursday night.
In the interview, parts of which he defined as “off the record,” Rabin referred to the Gush Emunim movement, which began campaigning for Jewish settlement in the occupied territories in 1974.
“A settlement movement which is like a cancer in the social and democratic tissue of the state of Israel,” Rabin said of Gush Emunim. “A group that takes the law into its own hands.”
In other recordings, Rabin is heard warning against the potential damage that settlement could cause to Israel.
“I can’t say with certainty that we won’t need to evacuate them,” he said. “Because of the [Arab] population. I don’t think it will be possible to [settle] over time, unless we want to get to apartheid, with a million-and-a-half Arabs inside the state of Israel. On that, I’m prepared to go to elections.”
Read the rest: http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.677544
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