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Shame in the Knesset: MK Hanin Zoabi Shut Out

14 years ago
35 Comments
by ck
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I am appalled.

For those of you who don’t speak Hebrew, what the video above shows is a distasteful spectacle whereby Israeli members of Parliament act like bat shit crazy street hooligans. Why? Well, one of the participants in the fauxtilla was an Israeli MK, Hanin Zoabi. A member of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), Hanin has been very critical of certain aspects of Israeli society. She has called Lieberman, Netanyahu and Livni “fascists,” she does not support the idea of a Jewish State and she has supported the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran. Suffice it to say that Zoabi and I have a number of things that we disagree on.

And yet? I was disgusted by the display put on by the Knesset when Zoabi returned from her trip on the fauxtilla. Having opinions many of us disagree with does not make one a traitor. Not wanting to listen to Hatikvah (a song I love) does not make one a traitor. I don’t care what Likud MK Miri Regev says, or in what language she says it in. Israel Beiteinu MK Anastassia Michaeli had to be restrained and escorted out, such was her fury and anger (ok so someone yelled at her and told her to go back to Russia, but still.). Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin tried to maintain control but despite everything, MK Zoabi, a democratically elected member of Israel’s Parliament was shut out by childish and undignified Parliamentarians representing the full spectrum of Israel’s right wing.

Adding further to the shame, was MK Zoabi’s outing as a, well, let’s just say that it’s unusual for a smart and educated woman in her milieu to be 41 and still single and unmarried. Not nice and totally not appropriate. No wonder she was brought to tears. I know the Knesset is a rough place. I know MKs often yell and scream at each other and call each other names all the time. But after one PR disaster this week, did we really need to see this spectacle? This political and macho posturing by a bunch of angry members of the government, taking out the frustrations caused by their own fuck ups at some little MK?

Again, let me add that regardless of their intentions, the fauxtilla was an attempt to break the embargo. It was an attempt ultimately to help Hamas get more unimpeded weapons deliveries from Iran and strengthen their stranglehold on Gaza. But we need to respect our democratic institutions and our politicians need to learn the value of dignity and restraint. On behalf of myself and all decent Israelis, I’d like to extend my apologies to MK Hanin Zoabi.

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ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

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35 Comments

  • Peter, I don’t know in what country you live. But I do guess somewhere in the West, just as I do. So, it’s you and I are those who live under the yoke of a gigantic fascist system that calls itself “democracy” and New World Order. More fascist than that does not exist, mind it. Hitler and Stalin have posthumously usurped power in this world and sell it as “democracy” under the names of Obama, Sarcozy, David Cameron, Merkel, Zapatero, Rutte and many other scoundrels and criminals of the same feather. They and Muslims are true fascists of today. If you have brains, think. If not, then it’s hopeless.

    Eugene Furbin

  • Only in a fascist state can a non-Jewish immigrant from Russia, Anastasia Michaeli, tell a native of this land, a daughter of Eretz Israel/Palestine for generations Hanin Zoabi, to get out of the country. This is because Israel is not a state of its citizens(like every other country in the world) but an ethnic state belonging to the Jewish people (and its Russian counterparts) and not to its citizens. It is Michaeli who should leave not Zoabi!

  • There is no indication that Hanin Zoabi was inciting rebellion. Her ideas are not that unusual and inflammatory and can be heard in cafes from Tel Aviv to Mount Scopus.

    She participated in a violent operation against the State – how is that not actionable rebellion?

    Furthermore, I’ve heard more seditious comments from people on the right.

    Whether or not that is true, it is completely and utterly irrelevant – a tu quoque argument.

    Go down that slippery slope and the jails will be overflowing with “traitors.”

    So if it’s too hard to enforce the law – just change it to make enforcement easier…?

  • Just this for thought, if she was Jewish, she would be expected to frame her remarks with a ‘I regret the violence shown by some of the members of the flotilla’. But there is no regret or apologies.

  • CK – look up the word “sedition”

    Joining action against your own country’s army is DEFINITELY included in that.

    She should be stripped of her Parliamentary immunity and tried for sedition.

    • BD, I know what “sedition” means. There is no indication that Hanin Zoabi was inciting rebellion. Her ideas are not that unusual and inflammatory and can be heard in cafes from Tel Aviv to Mount Scopus. Furthermore, I’ve heard more seditious comments from people on the right. Go down that slippery slope and the jails will be overflowing with “traitors.” Sorry man, I’m fairly certain Israeli democracy can handle what Hanin Zoabi has to dish out.

    • Actually, Kahane and his party can’t sit in the Knesset, while Hanin Zoabi can. In fact, it appears she can go on a propaganda flotilla tour intended to damage her country and still sit in the Knesset.

      So what was your point again?

  • The shameful part was for an Israeli Member of Knesset to be on board a ship full of Hamas sympathizers, who told the Israeli Navy ‘to go back to Auschwitz’, who prepared weapons to fight Israeli soldiers, who temporarily kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers and who stated they hoped to become martyrs. (All statements verified by videos these people shot themselves before they encountered the Israeli navy.)

    What is a person like that doing in the Israeli parliament?

  • Jinjirrie – Jews are indigenous to Israel. Well before Mohammed, well before Jesus, Jews lived for centuries there. We never left. Yes, most of us were exiled, but there was never a time that Israel was without Jews.

    These Helen Thomas accusations are so shallow and hollow, so desperate.

  • Sorry Jinjirrie, but he’s a resident. http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=176017

    Look, the bulk of Arabs from east Jerusalem have a standing offer from Israel to get Israeli citizenship, since Israel considers the city to be annexed and part of Israel. There are very small numbers who have accepted the offer, because doing so is to accept Israel and its sovereignty over east Jerusalem. Whoever wrote that Ynet article is obviously not familiar with the differences in English between a resident and a citizen. The Jerusalem Post, a newspaper published in English only, isn’t confused about the term and that’s why it’s mentioned so early in Khaled abu Toameh’s article. These guys are residents and they belong to Hamas, a murderous terror organization seeking to kill Jews inside and outside of Israel.

    As for legitimacy based on indigenous rights, if that’s really the way you want to present this situation in Jerusalem, then you might be interested in the FACT that Jerusalem was majority Jewish going back to the early 1800s. Not only were they the majority in Jerusalem, but they were a majority in the part we call east Jerusalem, since that was the full size of Jerusalem back then. It only became “Arab East Jerusalem” because the Arabs, local and Jordanian, evicted every last Jew from there and from the West Bank/Judea and Samaria.

    As for political affiliations, these guys are all definitely Hamas.

  • Having opinions many of us disagree with does not make one a traitor.

    But she is a traitor, pure and simple. The disgusting part is the reporter’s sympathy for the despicable traitor – commenting with pity about her tears.

    She supported the enemy, and participated in a violent incursion against Israel, and should be tried and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, not that it will ever happen in the cowardly state Israel has become.

  • Ynetnews says four were ‘stripped of their citizenship’
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899089,00.html

    Any Palestinian has inalienable indigenous rights to reside in Palestine as it was before a single zionist settler set foot in it.

    The faux state of Israel, now in its final writhings, has abandoned any semblance of the rule of law and is ethnically cleansing indigenous folks who are unfortunate enough to be born non-settler under the trumped up pretext of their political affiliation. This is like McCarthyism on bagels.

    The settlers may think they have some sort of assumed legitimacy however, legitimacy is only available from Palestinians.

  • It’s almost as if the world is preparing to continue Hitler’s final solution by its outrageous, almost universal condemnation of Israel.

    Truth is, I believe that the world secretly approved of what the Nazis were attempting to do, which is why they, including the U.S., didn’t enter the war earlier to save the Jews, nor even bomb the railroad tracks leading to the gas chambers.

  • I agree with MK Anastassia Michaeli. Hanin Zoabi is an enemy of the state, and should not represent Israel and should not be in the Knesset.

    She should be stripped of her Israeli citizenship–as should be done to all the Arab Israelis who act as a 5th column against Israel–and deported to one of her 22 Arab countries–her choice.

    Only STUPID LIBERAL LEFTIST Israel would find itself in such an untenable position, with traitors in the government. Or not (I forgot about Obama.).

    In short, we are discovering at this late date, that Kahane Tzaddak.

  • She’s an enemy of the state who should be tried for subversive activities.

    If Arab Israelis can’t find representation with an allegiance to Israel, than they can’t find representation for the Israeli government. That would be a shame, but the current situation can not be allowed.

    Any Israeli pretending free speech is limitless and these people have a right to government seats is out of their head.

  • wait, she cried because she was called names?

    there’s no crying in politics

    did she think that she would be welcomed back to the knesset with open arms?

  • Yes, I suppose the behavior of the MKs wasn’t nice.

    However, the woman is a traitor. She should be in jail, or better yet, they should strip her of her citizenship and deport her to Gaza.

    That’s where she was trying to go, right? So let her go.

    The same goes for any Jewish Israeli who gives aid and comfort to the enemy.

    Objecting to this or that policy is one thing. Trying to change the policy of the government by democratic means is one thing.

    However, actively trying to help the enemy get weapons they can the use to kill Israelis is another thing entirely.

  • Um, they didn’t have citizenship. They are among the many Jerusalem Arabs who have refused Israel’s offer of citizenship and remain living as residents only.

    And while it’s nice to simply compare their affiliation as “inconvenient,” as you do, they actually belong to a group crying out for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews around the world.

    In fact, it’s a little quaint to read the rest of your diatribe about “ethnosupremacism” and “harassment of those unfortunate enough to be born into a different culture” considering it’s Hamas men you’re defending. Are you even aware of the irony?

  • Are you gonna apologise to the folks whose ‘Israeli’ ‘citizenship’ was stripped from them today because of their undesirable, inconvenient political ‘affiliations’?

    One dimensional collectives are already far gone, way far gone – see the thin edge of the wedge for what it is.

    Your apologies are appreciated, however until the poison of zionism, the noxious ethnosupremacism which facilitates the sort of harassment and hatred inflicted upon those unfortunate enough to be born into a different culture or class than the dominant elite in the racist calamity that is Israel, is diluted into non-existence and there are equal rights and opportunities for all in one undivided state of Palestine, there will be no peace, no security and no guilt-free cooking & recipes either.