Haneen Zoabi is an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset who is frequently in the news for verbally attacking the Jewish State or for actions against Israel, such as participating in the anti-Israel Gaza Flotilla in 2010.
Zoabi also praised the Palestinian Arabs who kidnapped and murdered the three Israeli boys during the summer of 2014, called for a violent uprising against Israel, and has spit in the face of Arab Israeli police officers for being “traitors.”
Zoabi, 47, recently again showed her loyalty to those who murder Israelis by making a condolence call, with several other Arab MKs, on the families of terrorists who murdered Israelis, including one American Israeli, Richard Lakin.
Zoabi and her colleagues told the families of the terrorists that they would help to get the bodies of the terrorists released from Israeli authorities. They referred to the terrorists as “martyrs.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was infuriated by the visit, as were many knesset members across several different parties.
“MKs going to console families of terrorists who murdered Israelis are not worthy of serving in the Knesset,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
The Zionist Union party issued a statement criticizing the meeting, saying that the visit with the families of terrorists by Arab MKS “encourages more terrorism and killing of innocents.”
Zoabi and her two Arab Israeli knesset member compatriots were suspended for several months. They will be barred from attending the Knesset plenum, but will still be able to vote both in the Knesset and in committees.
Zoabi was just given an American media platform from which to respond to the criticism leveled against her.
Newsweek magazine ran an op-ed by Zoabi on Feb 14. Zoabi rejected construing Israel’s violence towards Palestinian Arabs as self-defense. The legislator went so far as to say that Israel, because it is an “occupying power,” is not entitled to self-defense.
She wrote:
‘Self-defense’ is the expression the Israelis use in order to justify any extra-judiciary executions as well as their control over others’ lives. However, there can be no justification for killing, nor for oppression. The occupier does not have the right to self-defense. We, the occupied, have the full and only right to fight it, by all means recognized within the framework of international law and supported by the international community.
Zoabi, while rejecting Israel’s right to defend itself, nonetheless claimed that the terrorists, killed by Israeli authorities while committing terrorist acts, are just as much victims as are the innocent Israelis whom the terrorists maimed and killed.
She also argued that her suspension was evidence of what she claims is an increasingly undemocratic Israel, as well as of Israel’s blatant hostility towards Palestinian Arabs, whom she refers to as the indigenous people of the region.