With protests outside, police grill Balad MKs in fraud probe

The Israel Police on Monday questioned Knesset members Jamal Zahalka and Hanin Zoabi as part of an ongoing investigation into the funding of their Arab political party, Balad.

Outside the Lod headquarters of police’s Lahav 433 anti-corruption unit, dozens of activists, including Knesset lawmakers, protested against the probe they claimed was a political witch hunt.

“We’re going into this investigation as accusers and not as accused,” Balad leader Zahalka told supporters outside of 433’s Lod headquarters, according to the Haaretz daily. “This is another step in the political persecution of Balad and the Arab public since the last elections.”

Police say they are investigating Balad over suspicions of fraud, money laundering, and illegal use of party funds.

They say Balad members are suspected of creating a mechanism that for years misrepresented “the origin of millions of shekels” obtained from within Israel and abroad.

Authorities did not provide further information on the alleged sources of the financing.

Balad, an acronym for National Democratic Assembly, is part of the 13-MK Joint List, a coalition of Arab Israeli parties in parliament. Its Knesset members have at times been vilified as a fifth column in Israeli politics, and other lawmakers have attempted to have them banned from being able to run for Knesset.

The party has denounced the probe as part of that trend and an attempt to silence Israel’s Arab minority, which accounts for 17.5 percent of the country’s population of eight million and is largely supportive of the Palestinian cause.

“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu incites against the Arab public and its leadership, and works towards delegitimizing [them],” Zahalka charged, adding that the police investigation was backed by the prime minister, the Shin Bet security service and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.

According to former Knesset member Mohammad Barakeh, the recent arrests of high-ranking party officials in connection to the investigation were an effort to intimidate Israel’s Arab community.

“Every party has problems of financial irregularities which are usually checked and fixed,” said Barakeh who now serves as the chair of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel

“But the police had to approach the prime minister due to the severe allegations,” he said in a reference to the alleged politically motivated double standard.

The party said in a statement that the interrogation of Zahalka and Zoabi would be “an escalation in the political persecution of the party.”

A total of 36 people have been arrested so far in connection with the investigation, including party officials and activists.

The Joint List holds 13 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, of which three are held by Balad members, and is the third largest bloc in the legislature.

Balad’s three Knesset members triggered outrage among Jewish Israelis earlier this year when they met with relatives of Palestinians who authorities say were killed while carrying out attacks.

In response, the Knesset passed a controversial law in July allowing the expulsion of MKs deemed guilty of racial incitement or supporting armed struggle against Israel.

Analysts have said the law will be extremely difficult to put into practice as any expulsion would require the support of 90 of the 120 MKs.

Balad founder and then-MK Azmi Bishara fled Israel in 2007 amid allegations he advised the Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah and directed its rocket fire against Israel during a month-long war the previous year.

AFP contributed to this report.