Jonathan Arkush on today’s murder of a 13-year-old girl in Israel

Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush said: “Today a 13 year old Israeli teenage girl called Hallel Yaffe Ariel  was murdered in her bedroom at home, stabbed multiple times by a Palestinian terrorist.  The murderer’s mother praised him as a ‘hero’.  I am disgusted beyond words.  We need to understand that there is a direct link between the constant incitement to violence and hatred spoken by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (who was inexplicably cheered by the European Parliament last week despite shamefully invoking blood libel accusations during his speech) and Palestinian terror like the atrocity today.

“Terror is terror and the murder of innocents, whether in Brussels, Orlando or Istanbul attracts widespread condemnation, including by world leaders.  There is no hierarchy of terror and murder and exactly the same should apply to atrocities committed by Palestinians.

“The Board of Deputies has long called for effective sanctions to be applied to the Palestinian Authority for its long history of incitement to violence and murder.  The time has now come when the Palestinian Authority’s office in London should be closed and we call on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to take that step and send a long awaited and much needed signal to the PA that Britain has had enough of its addiction to terror and murder and its blatant refusal to accept the existence of the State of Israel.”