MK Effi Eitam (National Religious Party - National Union) raised a storm of outrage yesterday when he called for West Bank Arabs to be transferred and for Israeli Arabs to be ejected from politics.

Left-wing and Arab lawmakers reacted furiously to Eitam's statements and called for Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to open an investigation into the rightist lawmaker's comments on grounds of incitement to racism.

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Eitam said that the great majority of Palestinians in the West Bank should be expelled, and that Arabs should be ousted from Israeli politics as a fifth column and "a league of traitors."

The remarks, broadcast yesterday on Army Radio, were made during a Sunday speech at a memorial service for a soldier killed in Lebanon during the recent war.

"We will have to expel the great majority of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria," Eitam said. "It's impossible with all those Arabs, and it's impossible to give up the territory. We've already seen what they're doing there," he said.

It was the first time that Eitam, who heads the Religious Zionism faction within the National Union, has publicly supported deportation of Palestinians.

Turning to the subject of Israeli Arabs, Eitam said, "We will have to take another decision, and that is to sweep the Israeli Arabs from the political system. Here, too, it's clear and simple. We've raised a fifth column, a league of traitors of the first rank. Therefore, we cannot continue to enable so large and so hostile a presence within the political system of Israel."

Yossi Beilin, the leader of the left-wing Meretz party, urged Attorney General Menachem Mazuz Monday to bring Eitam to trial on charges of incitement to racism.

Beilin's call was based on an amendment to the law that grants lawmakers immunity from prosecution. The amendment lifts the immunity from legislators who incite to racism or ethnic prejudice.

AG urged to probe comments

Earlier in the day, Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan called on Mazuz to open an investigation against Eitam, on suspicion of incitement and sedition.

Arab MKs and leaders of Arab social organizations yesterday urged Mazuz to open a criminal investigation against Eitam.

Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) said "Eitam's remarks would have been more authentic had they been delivered in German."

"These are irresponsible statements," Tibi told the radio, "directed at the lowest level of the racism surging within Israeli society.

"A long time ago the racists and fascists moved from the Israeli street to the Israeli government and the halls of power" added Tibi.

Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh said that the attack on the representatives of Arab citizens of Israel was an attempt to "delegitimize the Arab population entirely and to negate their right to voice their opinions and participate in the political process."

Barakeh said the measures proposed by Eitam are already being implemented, as the Palestinians "are witness to many steps to push them aside and expel them from their homeland, among them the security fence in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The policies of siege, starvation, and negation of the basic right of human dignity are a means of extremely dangerous ethnic expulsion.

Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Oppenheimer said that Eitam's words "show that the dogma of [slain extreme right-wing Rabbi Meir] Kahane is alive and well. In a moment of candor, the mask was removed from Eitam's face, exposing him as a leader of fantasy and racism."

The spokesman of the Justice Ministry said his office had received requests to open an investigation of Eitam, and they would receive the customary attention.