Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi received a suspended sentence of six months’ imprisonment Sunday morning and a fine of NIS 3,000, plus three years of probation.

The slap on the wrist was handed down after the Joint Arab List MK signed a plea bargain agreement with outgoing Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein last December.

Zoabi was convicted on a charge of causing disgrace to a public servant, instead of being charged with racism and incitement to violence.

The indictment and conviction followed an July 2014 incident in which Zoabi was verbally whipping up a mob of Israeli Arabs outside a court house in Nazareth. She was encouraging the mob to spit in the faces of Israeli Arab police officers who were securing the site, taunting them, calling them “traitors” and telling the crowd “they should be scared of us.”

The Israeli Arab shooter who murdered three Israelis Jan. 1 in Tel Aviv was buried Wednesday in a small, quiet ceremony late Tuesday night, a short time after security authorities returned his body to the family.

The funeral, held in Wadi Ara village of Ar’ara where Nashet Melhem was raised, was limited to 80 people, primarily family members, in accordance with police directives.

Despite that, Hebrew-language media reported some of the women called out that Melhem had “died a shahid” (martyr) and was “a beloved one in God’s eyes.” The terms nowadays are used when referring to members of terrorist organizations, or lone wolf terrorists who die while carrying out attacks against others, which they call jihad, or “Islamic holy war.”

Until this past Friday, Israeli authorities and media were referring to Melhem as a “shooter.” But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu specifically changed the reference to “terrorist” in his statements on the attacks by Saturday night, implying additional information had been uncovered in the investigation.

Mohammed Melhem, a volunteer police officer, was himself was arrested as a suspected accessory, mainly because Melhem stole his father’s weapon to carry out his attacks. He did not attend the funeral, though he probably could have, having been released from custody on Sunday; he was at home on house arrest at the time along with his son Ali, who paid a similar price for his brother’s crimes. The family attorney said in an earlier statement to media that Israeli security officials “understand” that neither of the two men were responsible for the attacks.

Nashet Melhem, 31, opened fire Jan. 1 with his father’s submachine gun at the Simta pub on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv. Two Israeli Jews – Alon Bakal, 26 and Shimon Raimi, 30 – were killed and eight others were wounded. Melhem then disappeared, hailing a cab to escape, and subsequently killing his driver as well: 42-year-old Israeli Bedouin Ayman Sha’aban.

In less than two hours he made it back to his home village and for the next eight days hunkered down, hiding from Israeli security. Despite the tracking efforts of hundreds of top personnel, Melhem evaded the law.

When he was finally found on Jan. 8 the terrorist first fled, racing through yards in an attempt to escape. He then turned and opened fire at the approaching security personnel who came to arrest him, and in self-defense they returned fire at the terrorist, who was shot and killed.

The question is, who aided Melhem in his escape from justice for so long? He clearly had plenty of help. Israeli authorities have poured their resources into finding out who participated in that effort, and how.

It is also revealing, and troubling, that in a legislative system designed to create and uphold a nation’s laws, that not one Israeli Arab Knesset member has denounced Melhem’s attacks. Not in Hebrew in any forum, nor in the Arabic language to their own constituencies.

Moreover, at least one veteran Israeli Arab Knesset member is actually calling on the government to “put on trial” those officers who shot and killed the terrorist, calling his death an “execution.” Balad MK Hanin Zoabi told an interviewer on the Musawa channel in the Palestinian Authority capital of Ramallah in Samaria that “even though security forces could have arrested him, they were directed to execute him… the matter at hand is the reputation of the police state.”

That is a very grim message to the sole democracy in the Middle East. It’s a red flag that this country’s electorate should remember the next time Israelis go to the polls.

A man who poured his drink on the head of Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zoabi was handed a suspended sentence of four months in jail on Sunday.

Artemi Kazrov, 28, was also ordered to perform 180 hours of community service.

In his decision at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, Judge Tzachi Uziel wrote, “An attack on an elected official because of her views demands a punitive response.

“Political or ideological violence, and even more so, physical violence toward an elected official because of his views and the fulfillment of his [public] duties represents a challenge to the rule of democracy.”

Two weeks before Knesset elections last March, Kazrov and a group of other activists attended a lecture by Zoabi on women’s rights at the Tel Aviv College of Law and Business.

From the start, their group surrounded the stage and began heckling the lawmaker, who herself has harassed numerous others.

Zoabi supporters responded in kind; one unfolded a scarf depicting the flag of the Palestinian Authority and waved it.

At that point, Hazrov climbed on to a table, grabbed a full beverage bottle and poured it over the Knesset member’s head.

He was immediately arrested and taken into custody. The following day he was indicted on charges of assault and misconduct in a public forum. Kazrov pleaded guilty and was convicted on the charges.

But the suspended sentence he received may have been in response to the slap on the wrist received by the Knesset member herself.

Zoabi was indicted last Thursday on a charge of “disgracing a public servant”

as the result of a plea bargain struck last year with outgoing Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein.

In exchange for pleading guilty, the lawmaker will not be charged with the more serious crime of incitement to racism and making threats, both of which she could easily have been charged with numerous times.

But in particular, Weinstein announced last year he was determined this time to actually charge her with the crimes after she called a contingent of Israeli Arab security personnel “traitors” and urged a mob of demonstrators to spit in their faces.

The incident took place at a protest in front of the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court in July 2014.

Zoabi also implied threats to the officers who were providing security at the event, and continued to incite the crowd over Israeli Arabs who participate in Israeli society. She blithely ignored the fact that she herself does the same and is paid more than generously for the privilege.

It was the bodily needs of the Tel Aviv shooter, an Israeli Arab, that proved to be his undoing. In Judaism, there is a blessing for the correct function of those things.

Israel Police and all the linked and jointly operating security forces received unstinting praise Saturday night from Israel’s two top leaders for finding the Tel Aviv shooter. Their work was particularly unpleasant.

Security officials used DNA testing and feces found in an abandoned building in Nashet Melhem’s village to track down the killer.

Melhem had fled north toward his home village of Ar’ara immediately after murdering three people in Tel Aviv on January 1 — something suspected by security officials at the time, but that could not be confirmed.

In actuality, he made it back within hours, officials told reporters after he was killed in a shootout at the village on Friday.

First he hid out in the fields. Then he found shelter in an abandoned building – that’s where Israeli security personnel found the first traces of his presence.

By the following Monday they had tracked him down to that building, located in a field within the village boundaries. But they had missed him; he was gone.

How did they know he was there? Human feces was found at the site. They took a sample and tested it; the sample matched Melhem’s DNA, according to Channel 10 television news. Ditto a spent cigarette butt, which also matched his DNA.

Both discoveries allowed Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich to calm the public in Tel Aviv by Tuesday, telling them it was much less likely Melhem was still in the area.

The killer was ultimately tracked to the home of a 76-year-old female relative who is hospitalized on a respirator. She has no idea that her home was used as a murderer’s hideout. The outside wall bears the name “Melhem” painted in blue Hebrew letters, a relative – Ahmed Melhem – told Channel 2 television news on Saturday night.

When Melhem saw the security forces coming to get him on Friday, he opened fire at them from the window of that relative’s home. He then tried to escape.

Security personnel had orders to try and take Melhem alive – if possible.

About 200 meters away, he jumped over a low wall into the yard of a neighbor, according to security officials. He turned and fired at security personnel chasing him – including an officer with a police dog (who was not injured).

That’s when Melhem was shot and killed by police who returned fire.

In response to questions from the television channel, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan emphasized that accomplices are still being tracked down. “We will arrest everyone who had a role in this,” Erdan affirmed.

One suspect told a judge at a hearing that a friend had reported seeing Melhem in the village, but he had not credited the report.

Ahmed Melhem, however, had a different view of the matter: “Maybe people didn’t want to get into a fight with him. The whole country knew how dangerous he was.”

On Saturday night Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement “on behalf of all the citizens of Israel” saying he wanted to thank “Israel Police, ISA, and the police special anti-terrorism unit” for their skill.

“They did their work professionally, methodically, day and night; they focused on the mission and they achieved it. All those who would murder Israelis should know that sooner or later we will find them, inside and outside the borders of the State of Israel. No one is immune. We will find the murderers and their accomplices,” Netanyahu warned.

A large contingency of Israel’s security forces was looking for Nashat Melhem both in the scene of his attack, in north Tel Aviv, and in his home region, the “Arab Triangle” that stretches in north-central Israel, along Wadi Ara, a valley connecting the cities of Hadera and Afula. Melhem, who murdered three people in Tel Aviv, including an Arab taxi driver, was located in his home town of Arara just after the start of Shabbat. A firefight ensued, with the terrorist using the same weapon—his father’s—which used in the initial attack. eventually, Melehem was put down.

The Shabak released a statement saying, “The wanted man Nashat recognized the Shabak and SWAT forces coming near the structure where he had been hiding, and tried to escape. Later he opened fire on our forces with the Falcon sub-machine gun that was in his possession—and with which he carried out the murders in Tel Aviv. The force fired back and killed him. There were no injuries to our side.

According to reports, since Friday morning large forces stormed a mosque in Wadi Ara, where the weekly sermon was about to be carried. According to reports, the Shabak received intelligence that the terrorist was hiding inside the mosque and that the sermon was only a cover for his presence there. Police arrested several suspects Friday morning and, following an interrogation, they gave up Melhem’s hiding place.

Chief of Police Roni Alsheikh announced after the terrorist’s elimination that “the goal is not yet complete. Police and the Shabak will continue, with determination and systematically, to expose everyone involved and to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu congratulated police, the Shabak and SWAT “who worked tirelessly, systematically and professionally until they located and neutralized the terrorist.”

MK Hanin Zoabi was indicted Thursday by the Northern District State Attorney’s Office on charges of “disgracing a public servant.”

The prosecution filed the charge as part of a plea bargain in which the Knesset member agreed to plead guilty as charged.

In return, the prosecution agreed not to charge the lawmaker with a more serious accusation of incitement to racism or threats.

The prosecution is also expected to seek a suspended prison term; Zoabi, however, is expected to vigorously oppose this and argue for a fine.

The accusation results from a July 6, 2014 incident in which Zoabi sneered at Israeli Arab security personnel. The MK told a mob of demonstrators at a court in Nazareth that Israeli Arabs who work for government security forces “should be scared of us.”

Zoabi called Israeli Arab police officers “traitors.” She told the mob to spit in their faces and made remarks with implied threats towards the officers.

The plea deal worked out with the MK was signed in December by Zoabi and outgoing Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein.

Police believe Tel Aviv shooter Nashet Melham disabled the camera inside the cab he hailed after his attack on a Dizengoff pub last Friday, according to a report Thursday by Channel 10 television news.

Melham, an Israeli Arab, apparently shot and killed Ayman Sha’aban when the driver, an Israeli Bedouin, refused to cooperate with his passenger’s orders to avoid a police checkpoint.

Investigators who found the abandoned taxi and Sha’aban’s body near the Glilot interchange also discovered the camera. They said the trip with Melham was not recorded: a clear sign the camera had been tampered with, probably before he murdered the driver.

Up to this point police have been circumspect in the information they release to the public about the investigation.

However, the demands of Sha’aban’s family to release footage of his murder seem to have resulted in their willingness to share the events in the cab.

Nearly all of Melhem’s family members, with the exception of his mother, have been arrested as accessories to the attack in which he killed two and wounded eight at the Simta pub. Melhem’s parents live in Ar’ara, in the northern Israeli area of Wadi Ara.

Included among those arrested is Melhem’s father Muhammed, a volunteer police officer. The elder Melhem identified his son as the perpetrator when he saw a video of the attack on television over the weekend, and who publicly pleaded with his son to turn himself in.

It was his father’s service weapon that Nashet Melhem stole and used to carry out his murderous attacks.