Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Hanin Zoabi (photo credit: Flash90)
Balad MK Hanin Zoabi came under fire from her own party for her comments earlier in the week that Mahmoud Abbas is a traitor for cooperating with Israeli security forces in the search for the three kidnapped teens.
Party chairman Wasel Taha said in a statement Friday that he was totally opposed to Zoabi’s statement, and that her comments were not representative of Balad, Israel Radio reported.
Taha also said that Balad supports a Palestinian state, and appreciates Abbas’s diplomatic achievements.
Zoabi made her comments in an interview with Channel 2.
MK Hanin Zoabi of the Arab Balad party seen during a plenum session in the Knesset on April 29, 2013. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Zoabi also faced severe public backlash for her statements last week that the kidnappers were “not terrorists,” but rather “people who do not see any way of changing their situation and they have to resort to these measures until Israel sobers up.”
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Since the June 12 kidnapping of Eyal Yifrach, 19; Naftali Fraenkel, 16; and Gil-ad Shaar, 16, the IDF has been conducting a sweeping operation in the West Bank that has resulted in the arrest of over 350 Palestinians, a majority of them members of Hamas. Four Palestinians have been killed in clashes related to the operation.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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