FM: Tal Law won't be extended by even one hour

Foreign minister says 'it must be made clear that anyone who does not serve in military or national service will not be eligible for anything from State'

Moran Azulay|Published: 02.27.12 , 16:13

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that Tal Law cannot be extended even by one hour. "It must be made clear that anyone who does not serve in the military or National Service will not be eligible for anything from the State. That is an integral part of our bill," Lieberman noted.

"Tal Law will not be extended, not by a day and not even by one hour… It will expire on August 1, and it will be August 1," he stressed before the members of Yisrael Beiteinu.

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Lieberman also discussed the attack in Haifa over the weekend, when two off-duty IDF soldiers were nearly lynched in a vicious, unprovoked mob attack by a group of Arab-Israeli men early Saturday near Haifa's Rambam Hospital, with guards deployed in the area narrowly averting a lynching.

"At certain moments I felt my end was nearing," one soldier told Yedioth Ahronoth, as shocking new details of the assault emerged Sunday.

Lieberman said: "We saw thugs, terrorists, with all it implies. Engraving the head of one man, yelling 'smelly Jew' and 'slaughter the Jew.' It wasn't a quarrel it was a terror attack, an attempted murder. If the Rambam guards wouldn't have intervened, I don't know how it would have ended. I ask the internal security minister and justice minister – what's going on with the indictment?"

Arabs used sharp object on victim's head

Meanwhile, police arrested two additional suspects in connection to the assault. It is suspected at least six assailants currently in custody attacked the soldiers on the assumption they had hurled stones at their house. Police later said a seventh suspect has also been arrested. Officers were at one point of the opinion the attack was a case of mistaken identity.

The Haifa Magistrate's Court extended the suspects' remand by five days on Sunday. Judge Zaid Falah compared the attack to a lynch Palestinians performed on soldiers in Ramallah 12 years ago.

"The events are consistent with dark regimes and not a democratic state like Israel," Falah said.

"Fortunately, Rambam security guards arrived at the scene, otherwise one could not imagine the possible outcomes." Falah determined that the evidence indicate reasonable suspicion that all the suspects had in fact committed the crimes.