Zionist Union MK urges lawmakers to walk out on Zoabi

Zionist Union MK Eitan Cabel on Tuesday urged fellow lawmakers to boycott firebrand Arab MK Hanin Zoabi and walk out of the Knesset plenum when she gets up to speak.

Zoabi — who stirred controversy last week when she called Israeli soldiers “murderers,” causing a near-riot in the Knesset — responded by calling Cabel a “small politician” and accusing him of racism.

After Zoabi’s comments, said Cabel in a statement, “I thought it correct to write a letter to all the Knesset members that are opposed to her outrageous and defiant remarks with a request that they leave the plenum hall every time she gets up to speak.”

“Just ignore her existence,” he added in an interview with Army Radio.

“Her last speech caused me to feel ashamed and angry that a Knesset member could lie through her teeth, make false accusations, incite to violence and forcefully, intolerably attack the state and IDF soldiers,” the opposition lawmaker said.

Cabel also urged the attorney general to “work determinedly until she is removed from the State of Israel’s parliament.”

Zoabi in response said “MK Eitan Cabel is a small politician” and accused him of racism.

“The enlightened world is against the Israeli racism that Cabel, Liberman, Hazan, and Netanyahu clearly represent,” she said.

Referring to Cabel’s boycott call, she said, “It’s better to speak to an empty chair than to speak to the empty conscience of Cabel and his ilk.”

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Cabel’s plan was “smart.”

“Zoabi creates provocations in the plenum; the MKs need to get up and not listen to her,” the Zionist Union leader told the Knesset Channel. “I suggest that her speeches not be broadcast.”

Meretz leader Zehava Galon said Zoabi’s comments upset her as well, but also protested “bullying in the plenum” by the other Knesset members against Zoabi.

“I also don’t like the speeches by (Likud MK) Oren Hazan. If I don’t want to hear something, I’ll leave without some [organized] initiative,” she said, according to the Knesset Channel.

Zoabi raised hackles in the Knesset last week when she branded Israeli soldiers “murderers” and demanded they apologize for the raid on the Mavi Marmara in 2010, in which she participated. The ensuing bedlam in the Knesset nearly devolved into blows and Knesset members angrily approached the podium and were restrained by security detail.

Sixty of the 120 Knesset members filed an ethics complaint against Zoabi, and Netanyahu turned to Israel’s top law enforcement official in a bid to oust her from the Knesset.

“I spoke with the attorney general [Avichai Mandelblit] this evening in order to explore ways to expel Hanin Zoabi from the Knesset,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday night.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman that evening branded Zoabi a terrorist, writing on Facebook that “IDF soldiers will continue to fight against terrorists on sea, air and land — and that includes terrorists traveling at sea who are members of Knesset.”

Netanyahu also authorized coalition chairman David Bitan to examine the possibility of advancing a bill to oust Zoabi in lieu of the controversial MK suspension bill.

Zoabi’s comments came a day after Israel signed a reconciliation deal with Turkey to restore ties, after years of frosty relations exacerbated by the raid. The deal provides for Israel to pay Turkey $20 million compensation over the Marmara raid, a point objected to by some Israeli politicians.

Ahead of the 2015 elections, Knesset members sought to prevent Zoabi running for reelection, but a Knesset panel’s ban on her and on would-be legislator Baruch Marzel, from the far-right of the spectrum, was overturned by the Supreme Court. Marzel was not elected to the Knesset.