RAMALLAH: Arab members of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) on Friday lashed out at Israeli Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias after he said that Arabs should not live with Jews.

Speaking at the Israel Bar Association headquarters in Tel Aviv late Thursday, Attias said Israel was in danger of “losing the Galilee” if the Israeli-Arab population continued to “spread” in the north, and mentioned in particular the Wadi Ara area, where he said Haredim, an ultra-Orthodox community, planned to construct houses that could help “stop the expansion.”

“Arabs buy apartments in places with a Jewish nature, which causes unwanted friction,” Attias, who is a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said. “We can all be bleeding hearts,” said the minister, “but I think it is unsuitable (for Jews and Arabs) to live together.” Attias cited the Jewish-Arab clashes last year in Acre to explain his point. “Mayors don’t want mixed cities. We all saw the riots in Acre, we saw how dangerous it was. We can’t toy with that. The reality is that different sectors do not necessarily get along. The many Arabs in Wadi Ara make it an undesirable place to live.”

He said he would push forward the long-planned Harish project in order to “save” the Wadi Ara area — which has seen “illegal Arab expansion” — by populating the region with Haredim, “who are the only ones willing to live there.”

Nazareth Mayor Shimon Gapso decided last week to build a new ultra-Orthodox settlement in the coming year on land expropriated from Arabs to counter the demographic situation in the northern city that has an annual emigration rate of 0.5 percent and a growing Arab population of 14 percent. Parliament member Ahmed Tibi of the United Arab List party said Attias’ statement was shocking, especially when coming from a minister in a government that should be distributing resources equally. He said his statement clearly is incitement to racism.

Afou Aghbaria of Hadash party slammed Attias’ statement, saying it threatened to disturb the delicate relations between Jews and Arabs in the area. “I suggest he go see a doctor as soon as possible, to find out if he has been infected with the Lieberman strand of racist flu,” he said.