The Knesset vs Ayman Odeh
Ayman Odeh at his home in Haifa in 2022
Orly Noy writes in +972 on 2 July 2025:
The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously stated that “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” In Israel’s Knesset, that equation is reversed: parliamentary work has become the continuation of war by other means.
On Monday, the Knesset House Committee voted to impeach Palestinian parliamentarian Ayman Odeh, head of the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al list. His crime? In January, as the two-month Gaza ceasefire came into effect, Odeh tweeted: “I am happy about the release of the [Israeli] hostages and [Palestinian] prisoners. From here, both peoples must be freed from the yoke of the occupation. We were all born free.”
As I watched the committee’s hearing, I felt like my eyes were bleeding. It was physically unbearable. Knesset members from across the political spectrum — who aren’t worthy of the dust on Odeh’s shoes when it comes to humanism, morality, and democratic integrity — competed to see who could spew the vilest rhetoric against him.
No one paid attention to the Knesset’s legal adviser — who, after the obligatory lip service condemning Odeh’s “disgusting statements,” concluded that there was no legal basis for his impeachment. And it goes without saying that no one listened to Odeh’s attorney, Dr. Hassan Jabareen, who explained why the proposal was procedurally flawed, legally unsound, and morally bankrupt.