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Israeli ministers take stand against settler violence

Left-wing members of the government held a conference at the Knesset dedicated to what they consider a significant increase in violence by West Bank settlers.
Itmar Ben-Gvir (C), member of Israel's Knesset (parliament) and head of the one-man far-right "Jewish Power" (Otzma Yehudit) party.

The fact that the two events coincided was typical of the tense state of Israeli security affairs. On Nov. 22, while the Knesset was discussing a rise in settler violence targeting Palestinians, a 25-year-old Israeli named Eliyahu David Kay was being laid to rest. Kay was killed in Jerusalem’s Old City a day earlier by a member of Hamas.

The combination of these two events turned a conference organized by members of the Knesset from the left into the site of a bitter clash with far-right members of the opposition. They argued that holding the conference when funeral services were being held for a man killed solely because he was a Jew showed an extreme lack of sensitivity.

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