by Nadav Shragai
"How dare you?" Yesh
Atid MK Aliza Lavie thundered at Balad MK Hanin Zoabi, who claimed on
Tuesday that the people who abducted three teenaged yeshiva students
last Thursday "weren't terrorists." But Zoabi isn't the one to ask.
The question we need to
ask is to ourselves, and it is: How dare a nation whose enemies have
been plotting its destruction for nearly a century allow Zoabi, in the
name of democracy, to sit in its parliament and identify with its
enemies?
How dare a nation that
considers itself sane allow someone who has called herself a "fan" of
former MK Azmi Bishara, who is suspected of spying against Israel and
aiding Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War and has since fled the
country, sit in the Knesset?
Zoabi didn't surprise
anyone. She has made it clear in the past that the First Intifada "was
good" and that the events in Tahrir Square in Cairo were a suitable
model for protests against the "occupier." Three years ago, after an
anti-tank missile was fired at a school bus carrying Israeli children,
killing Daniel Weiflich, the lady explained: "If you don't want them to
shoot at you, the Israeli public should take to the streets and
demonstrate for an end to the Gaza blockade." She has been consistent,
and after five Israelis were murdered in the bombing on a tourist bus
Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2012, she stated that "Israel is not a victim, even
when [its] citizens are murdered" and that "the Israeli policy of
occupation is guilty."
Unfortunately, even the
facts known about the scandal of Zoabi's presence on the Mavi Marmara
ship in 2010 were insufficient for Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein to
put her on trial. At the time, Weinstein found "significant evidentiary
and legal difficulties" and decided to close the case. Even the Supreme
Court decided to override the Central Elections Committee's decision to
disqualify Zoabi for the 19th Knesset and let her run. The justices
expressed doubt as to whether Zoabi's activity included supporting the
armed struggle of a terrorist organization. They wrote in their decision
that "Her activity … and particularly her participation in the
flotilla, indeed comes very close to the prohibitions that Clause 7a
warns against and is designed to prevent. The evidence pertaining to the
matter of [Zoabi's] disqualification was not extensive, but it was
significant and certainly approaches the 'critical mass' that would
justify nullifying her [candidacy.]"
Now Zoabi herself might
have supplied evidence that will allow the High Court of Justice to
reconsider her collective treasury of statements as the "critical mass"
that will lead to her removal. Democracy is entitled to protect itself
against anyone who identifies with the enemy's terrorist activity, which
is what Zoabi did in her remarks. Nothing less. In any other functional
Western democracy, she would long ago have found herself in her
rightful place -- outside the parliament, and possibly even on trial.
But in Israel, which is so democratic it has gone nuts, many have been
blinded to the difference between what may and may not be said, between
freedom of expression and freedom to incite, between a person who calls
terrorism legitimate and someone who merely admires the enemy's
nationalistic goals.
"Why should I serve in
the army if I'm not loyal to the state?" Zoabi asked in an interview
about five years ago. "Why on earth should I be loyal to the state …
that defines itself as a Jewish state and as the national home of the
Jews?"
Really, why on earth?
And why on earth have we suddenly remembered to ask her, "How dare you?"
Why shouldn't she dare, when we've allowed her to sit in the Knesset
for years?
Nadav Shragai
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8807
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment