Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) has created a new firestorm with the latest in a long series of provocative remarks and actions.
In an interview for Channel 2 News Online, Zoabi said that IDF soldiers are “worse terrorists than ISIS.” While ISIS members “kill one person each time with their knife, the IDF [kills] tens of Palestinians with one button,” she said. She called on people not to enlist to the IDF or to ISIS: “They are both murderous armies, they have no border or red line.”
Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) noted that Zoabi’s provocation was made just as an Arab soccer team honored the founder of the Balad party, Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel after he was found to have committed treason.
“While Bishara the traitor receives a certificate of appreciation in Sakhnin, his protege Zoabi calls the IDF an army of murderers, who are worse terrorists than ISIS, and incites young people not to enlist to the IDF,” wrote Katz on Facebook.
“There is a clear action of libel, treason and subversion here,” he said. “In the next government session, I will demand that the legal establishment be instructed to find a legal way to distance her from the Knesset and immediately exile her from Israel. There is a limit to what a sovereign state and citizens can and should absorb from a traitor with a diploma.”
MK Danny Danon (Likud) also joined the attacks on Zoabi, who is currently suspended from participating in Knesset debates.
“Zoabi misses no opportunity to prove that she belongs in jail,” he said. “Her statements, which crossed the lines of morality and justice a long time ago, add another component to the motion I filed to the High Court, in a demand to make it possible to try her and dismiss her from the Knesset.”
MK Miri Regev (Likud) said that the comparison between the IDF and ISIS Means Zoabi must leave the Knesset. “She has proven that she is an enemy to Israel and she can no longer be a part of the Knesset.”
Regev said that Zoabi “is a dangerous enemy of Israel and belongs in jail, and not in the Knesset. She is as dangerous as a terrorist with her incitement.”
MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) also accused Zoabi of treason. “Her crazy statements join a slew of anti-Semitic and racist statements and actions that have characterized her for some time, which requires a proper response by the legislature. Those who act againt the IDF’s soldiers and the security forces have no place in the Israeli Knesset.”
MK Pnina Tamano-Shata of Yesh Atid said that Zoabi “proves time and time again that she is a despicable person, who demeans the title of Israeli Knesset Member.”
Deputy Minister Faina Kirshenbaum (Yisrael Beytenu) hinted that the coalition will soon pass the law known as the Zoabi Law, which will spell an end to her tenure as Knesset Member and prevent her from being reelected in the future. “Zoabi knows that her days as Hamas ambassador in the Knesset are numbered, and the era of immunity that the Knesset gave her will end along with them.”
