Knesset suspends Balad MKs for 'unethical' action
Articles from 1) JPost, Netanyahu quotes, 2) Times of Israel, 3) Haaretz.
Joint List MKs Zoabi, Ghattas, and Zahalka at the meeting to discuss the return of the corpses of Palestinian knife attackers to their families.
‘If Israel wasn’t occupying West Bank, Palestinian kids wouldn’t need to kill Jews‘
Last week, the three MKs met in east Jerusalem with 10 families of terrorists, whose bodies police have declined to give them for burial.
By JPost staff
February 09, 2015
A lawmaker with the Arab nationalist Balad Party rejected accusations on Tuesday that his colleagues’ meeting with the families of Palestinian terrorists last week was tantamount to “a provocation.”
The Knesset Ethics Committee suspended Balad’s three MKs from all Knesset activity except for voting on Monday for up to four months, days after the lawmakers met with terrorists’ families.
Balad is one of the parties making up the Joint List.
MKs Haneen Zoabi and Basel Ghattas received four-month suspensions, and Balad chairman Jamal Zahalka, who has fewer past punishments from the committee, will be suspended for two months.
The panel received more than 450 complaints about the lawmakers, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, and from relatives of people killed by the terrorists whose families the Balad MKs met.
Last week, the three MKs met in east Jerusalem with 10 families of terrorists, whose bodies police have declined to give them for burial saying the families refuse to meet the condition of understated funerals to avoid incitement.
The MKs are also accused of having stood in a moment of silence for Palestinian “martyrs.”
The meeting was condemned by members of all the Knesset’s factions except the Joint List.
Also on Monday, coalition party leaders approved in principal a proposal by Netanyahu to allow 90 MKs to vote to suspend a colleague.
In an interview with Army Radio on Tuesday, Ghattas said that the parliamentarians were “simply carrying out their obligations as public servants.”
“I have a very busy schedule in which I serve the Arab public,” he said. “I’m responsible for the Joint List’s economic team, so now I’ll have more time [to deal with that].”
“For months, almost every one of the Joint List MKs has been working to retrieve the bodies,” Ghattas said. “Less than two weeks ago, we met [Public Security Minister Gilad] Erdan and we told him that the families have agreed to the authorities’ conditions in accepting the bodies. He told us that that wasn’t the information that he had, and that we should bring him more accurate information.”
Ghattas said that he was acting as a mediator between the families and the state.
The lawmaker also acknowledged that the participants at the meeting stood up and read an Islamic tract in honor of “the martyrs of Palestine.”
“We went to the meeting that was supposed to be closed and business-oriented because we knew that if word got out it would do damage to the cause,” Ghattas said. “At one part of the meeting we stood up and read a passage [from the Koran] in honor of all of the martyrs of Palestine. It’s not meant to encourage [violence] or to provoke. It was more of a historic custom.”
The Balad deputy told Army Radio that the moment of silence was not unlike the custom observed on Israel’s holidays in honour of fallen soldiers and Holocaust survivors.
“The moment of silence gave us a very strong feeling, a feeling that we are a nation like any other,” Ghattas said. “There is no nation that recognizes and honours its victims like the Jewish people. These are noble customs. The terminology on both sides is different, so a murderer to you is a victim of the occupation in the eyes of my people.”
“If [Israel] wasn’t occupying the West Bank, these children would not have to kill Jews,” the lawmaker said. “Both the government of Israel and Gilad Erdan should want to compromise on the issue of releasing the bodies.”
Netanyahu, 26th October, 2015:
“I’m asked if we will forever live by the sword — yes.”
Netanyahu, February 7th, 2016:
“We are in a difficult struggle between those – like us – who want coexistence and peace, and those who want war and blood”.
Arab Israeli MKs meet relatives of Palestinian terrorists
Netanyahu says he seeks to punish lawmakers for meeting, which aimed to advance release of attackers’ bodies held by Israel
By Times of Israel staff
February 04, 2016
Knesset members from the Joint (Arab) List met this week with relatives of Palestinian terrorists killed by Israeli security forces as they were carrying out attacks, including some who had killed Israelis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the Knesset members on Thursday evening, saying they were “unworthy of serving” as lawmakers.
An organization representing the families of Palestinian “martyrs” invited all lawmakers from the Joint (Arab) List, which comprises three parties, to meet in Jerusalem. Three MKs — Hanin Zoabi, Jamal Zahalka and Basel Ghattas — showed up at the meeting Tuesday, all members of Balad, an Arab nationalist party whose members have identified with Palestinian violence in the past.
Some Israeli reports said that the meeting began with a moment of silence for the “martyrs.”
The father of Baha Alian, who along with Bilal Ranem killed three Israelis in an attack on a bus in Jerusalem in October, was among the Palestinians who attended the meeting, which he described as “warm and productive.”
Referring to the Israeli lawmakers as “Palestinian brothers,” he said “they listened to the suffering and pain of the martyr families whose bodies are held by Israel.”
The focus of the meeting was the relatives’ request that the Arab MKs pressure relevant Israeli authorities to return the remains of their loved ones.
“They emphasized that they would make every effort to return the bodies by pressuring the government and Knesset and by keeping in contact with diplomatic and security officials in the Israeli government. We agreed to meet again soon in order to follow up on this issue,” the father said.
Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians blasted their Joint (Arab) List Knesset colleagues.
“MKs going to console families of terrorists who murdered Israelis are not worthy of serving in the Knesset,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “I turned this evening to the Knesset speaker to examine what measures can be used against them.”
Zionist Union, the largest faction in the opposition, criticized the meeting and said in a statement that the “visit by Balad MKs with families of terrorists encourages more terrorism and killing of innocents.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely of Likud said that “Arab MKs don’t miss an opportunity to support terrorism. They harm first and foremost their own public, and represent nothing and promote nothing besides supporting terrorism and actively working against the State of Israel. The Arab public is the first that should come out against its representatives who act as agents of terrorism and not as its representatives in the Knesset.”
A spokeswoman for Balad said the MKs met the families due to their request for help releasing the bodies for burial. The request by the families was relayed to the Public Security Ministry, the spokeswoman said.
On Wednesday, just hours after three Palestinians killed an Israeli Border Police cadet and injured a second in Jerusalem, Abbas hosted families of terrorists involved in attacks in the capital. A day later, Abbas’s Fatah movement praised the three Palestinians who killed the cadet, Hadar Cohen, 19, according to Palestinian Media Watch, a group that monitors Palestinian media.
The father of one of the attackers said he was happy to hear that his son had died while carrying out the attack.
“We received the news with joy, a martyr, our Lord chose him from among the people to be a martyr, Allah will pardon him, and we hope he will be among the people of paradise, Allah willing,” he said, according to a PMW translation.
MKs Basel Ghattas, Haneen Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka from the Joint Arab List’s Balad faction. Photo by Rami Shlush
Knesset Suspends Three Israeli-Arab Lawmakers Over Visits With Families of Slain Terrorists
MKs Haneen Zoabi and Basel Ghattas were suspended for four months, and MK Jamal Zahalka was suspended for two months. ‘Miserable, anti-democratic and unethical decision,’ Joint Arab List says.
By Jonathan Lis and Jack Khoury, Haaretz
February 08, 2016
The Knesset Ethics Committee suspended three Arab lawmakers on Monday, following a public uproar over their meeting with the families of slain Palestinian terrorists.
MKs Haneen Zoabi and Basel Ghattas were suspended for four months, and MK Jamal Zahalka was suspended for two months. All the lawmakers are from the Joint Arab List’s Balad faction.
The lawmakers will be barred from attending the Knesset plenum the end of the winter session, but will still be able to vote.
Earlier on Monday, the coalition approved the tabling of a bill providing for the suspension of Knesset members;if supported by 90 Knesset members. The bill is precedent-setting in that it allows the Knesset to unseat a public representative for a period that the Knesset members themselves decide.
The draft, which was written by Immigration Minister Ze’ev Elkin, will now go to the Knesset Law and Justice Committee.
In an unusual step, however, the government decided Tuesday that the bill will not go through the Ministerial Committee for Legislation – a move which, in effect, would exclude Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit from having input if there legal contradictions are found in the bill.
Despite desire within the government to expedite the passage of the bill, it is expected to be presented for a first reading in the Knesset in two-weeks time at the earliest.
Zoabi and Ghattas received longer suspensions because of previous complaints against them filed with the committee. In the previous Knesset, Zoabi was suspended for six months over her remarks in favour of the Palestinian terrorists who carried out the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens in the West Bank. The suspension was most severe sanction leveled by the committee in the Knesset’s history. However, shortly after her suspension the Knesset was dissolved ahead of the new elections.
MK Ghattas visited the Temple Mount last October in defiance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s instructions barring MKs from the compound due to the violent tensions in the area. Ghattas also set sail from Greece on a Gaza-bound boat last June, in an attempt to break the blockade against the Strip. The boat was captured by the IDF before reaching its destination.
Last week’s meeting between the MKs and families of Jerusalem terrorists who were killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis was part of a campaign being conducted by the families and legal aid and human rights groups seeking the return of the bodies of their family members who were killed in the course of attacks and were now being held by Israeli authorities.
The Joint Arab List said that the burying of the dead is a human and religious duty, shared by Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and termed the efforts to return the bodies “perfectly legitimate regardless of the circumstances of the death.” However, the meeting was criticized across much of the political spectrum, and prompted the filing of a complaint with the Knesset Ethics Committee by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, and some 450 members the public, all demanding harsh punishment for the three MKs.
Zionist Union MKs decided on Monday to also submit a faction complaint against the three MKs with the committee.
‘Vindictive punishment’
Three of the Ethics Committee’s four MKs – from the Zionist Union, Kulanu and Shas – voted for the suspension, and one voted against it – the Joint Arab List’s Yousef Jabarin. Zionist Union MK Eyal Ben Reuven, who belongs to the party’s dovish faction, accused the three Arab lawmakers of “inspiring terrorism and encouraging the murder of more and more Israelis.” He added: “The Israeli Knesset will not allow its members to exploit democracy in order to harm the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The Joint Arab List blasted the committee’s decision. “The Joint List condemns the incitement and agitation campaign led by Netanyahu, which prompted to the committee’s miserable, anti-democratic and unethical decision. Even after the suspension we still demand the bodies held by the police to be released immediately.”
The Joint Arab List said that the committee’s decision was punishing the MKs for taking a moral and human stand. “The vindictive punishment will not deter us, and we’ll keep fighting against the policy of racism and fascism, and for true equality and real democracy, which Netanyahu is doing his utmost to eliminate.”
Culture Minister and Likud MK Miri Regev said after the committee’s decision was announced that she “hopes and believes that the suspension bill promoted by the prime minister will be swiftly legislated, so we can say ‘goodbye and good riddance’ to them.”