Left-wing MK banned From Knesset floor for six months following complaints against him

Hadash Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif at Israel’s Knesset in Jerusalem, November 2024

Noa Shpigel reports in Haaretz on 12 November 2024:

Lawmaker Ofer Cassif, from the left-wing Jewish and Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, has been banned from the Knesset floor and committees for six months by the Knesset Ethics Committee, following complaints filed against him. Despite the ban, Cassif may still vote, but his salary has been docked for two weeks. The penalty levied on Cassif is considered to be very severe, and the decision notes that complaints against him continue to be submitted.

Twenty-five complaints were filed against MK Cassif, a member of the joint Arab-Jewish party Hadash-Ta’al, four of them before October 7, 2023, and the rest afterward. Some complaints were dismissed because they were published by the media at the same time they were filed.

The Ethics Committee, chaired by MK Moshe Roth (of United Torah Judaism) wrote in the decision on Monday that, in addition to the amount of the complaints and their severity, Cassif did not apologize for his remarks or actions. However, many of the complaints were filed by one person, which was taken into account.

In January 2024, Cassif signed a petition calling to indict the State of Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In response, a process was opened to oust him from the Knesset, which failed, and a complaint was filed with the Ethics Committee. Likud MKs Nissim Vaturi and Tally Gotliv as well as other MKs complained about Cassif, as well as more than 2,500 individuals. This was one of the notable complaints that the committee debated.

Commenting on Cassif signing the petition, the committee wrote, this “is a very serious breach of the rules of ethics, constituting a real violation of the Knesset member’s duty of loyalty to promote the good of the country, and a breach of the public’s trust in MKs and the public’s trust in the Knesset.” The decision added that Cassif “damaged his commitment to his position as a leader in society and his duty to serve as a personal example of proper conduct.”

In response to the Ethics Committee’s decision, MK Cassif wrote, “My political statements against the occupation, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide that the Israeli government is committing in Gaza are well-founded statements protected under the freedom of political expression.” He also charged that the penalty “continues the political persecution of opponents of the war and critics of Netanyahu’s bloody regime. On the altar of his political survival, the campaign of incitement and hunting of everyone who raises a critical voice continues, including the families of the hostages.”

In response to the decision, Hadash wrote, “The Netanyahu regime is striving to eliminate the Knesset by outlawing opposition parties. Removing MKs who oppose war crimes is another drastic step on that road.”

The Ethics Committee has previously penalized Cassif several times. In October 2023, a few days after the start of the Gaza war, he compared the government’s war policy with the Holocaust. In response, the Ethics Committee banned him from the Knesset floor and committees for 45 days and withheld his salary for two weeks. In March 2023, he was banned for three days after calling MK Almog Cohen (from Otzma Yehudit) a “Nazi”.

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