Tsvika Foghel Warns the Next Massacre Could Come From Inside Israel or the West Bank

Foghel said he sees himself as a balancing and consensus-building figure in the Knesset. He said he has kept his own style and did not allow himself to be dragged into places he did not want to go. His worldview, he said, is rooted in the belief that “the State of Israel was given to the Jewish people and must be preserved for them.”

He also recalled a violent episode from his time as head of a state-appointed committee in the Bedouin town of Tuba-Zangariyye in northern Israel. On the eve of Yom Kippur, he said, his office came under fire and his car was set on fire. According to Foghel, the attackers knew his schedule. He said the incident was meant as a warning, not necessarily an assassination attempt, but that he continued his work anyway and was not deterred.

Foghel said those experiences reinforced his decision to enter the Knesset and take charge of the National Security Committee. He said the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack was a personal and national rupture, “one of the hardest two days” of his life, and warned that another major disaster could come either from Arab citizens of Israel, as in the May 2021 riots, from Judea and Samaria, or from a combination of both.

He rejected claims that Israel suffers from a lack of governability, saying patience is needed and that the party is still in its first Knesset term. He said future progress could include dealing with illegal weapons and extortion, but blamed the courts and the attorney general for blocking action. “If we succeed in carrying out the judicial overhaul, it will reduce many more problems,” he said. He said he has asked the attorney general for two and a half years to join meetings on how to fight organized crime, but she has refused, and even the High Court, in his words, “took the life out of me.” Foghel said the party’s achievements include the death penalty for terrorists and electronic monitoring legislation, and he urged right-wing voters to keep supporting the bloc, warning that a left-wing return would be “a disaster” that could not be fixed.