Arab MK: ‘Shahids’ were fighting occupation, aren’t criminals

Joint (Arab) List MK Basel Ghattas this week told an Arab Israeli TV channel that Palestinians who attacked Israelis were not committing a crime but were fighting “oppressive occupation.”

The comments came as Ghattas, a member of the Balad faction that is part of the Joint List party, was discussing a February 2 meeting with the families of terrorists killed while attacking Israelis that he and two other Arab MKs attended.

“The day Arab MPs abstain from visiting martyrs’ (shahids) families who have lost their precious sons in the turmoil of the struggle against the oppressive occupation – they did not go to kill or attempt to kill for criminal reasons or illegally – [is] the day we abstain from visiting martyrs’ families, we will have to vacate our [Knesset] chairs,” Ghattas told Hala TV on Wednesday.

MKs Ghattas, Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka had observed a minute of silence during the meeting. The MKs said afterwards that they had attended as part of efforts to persuade Israel to release the attackers’ bodies for burial.

The Knesset Ethics Committee suspended the three MKs for the meeting. Ghattas and Zoabi were banned from parliamentary activity for four months, while Zahalka, the only one of the three to attend the Ethics Committee’s hearing on the issue, was given a two-month suspension.

The meeting prompting coalition-backed legislation, now wending its way through the Knesset, that would give 90 of the 120 MKs the right to ban Knesset members for inappropriate behavior. The bill is still being drafted and amended. It is not clear if it will become law.