Arab MK derides Knesset speaker over wedding snub
Only 4 lawmakers are left off guest list: all Balad party members, and colorful Likud MK Oren Hazan
Arab-Israeli Knesset member Basel Ghattas of the Joint (Arab) List took to Facebook in a caustic post on Tuesday to express his ostensible joy over being one of the only MKs not to have been invited to the wedding of the Knesset speaker.
In all, Yuli Edelstein invited 1,200 people to his wedding, which took place on Monday. However, four out of the 120 Israeli lawmakers did not receive an invitation to the celebration.
These were the three lawmakers from the Joint List’s Balad party — Hanin Zoabi, Jamal Zahalka, and Ghattas — and MK Oren Hazan, who is from the speaker’s own Likud party.
Hazan and Edelstein have locked horns over Hazan’s checkered past.
In his Facebook post, Ghattas wrote, “Thank you for not inviting me and my two friends from Balad. I am proud that I don’t belong to the clan that assembled at your wedding, the majority of whom don’t have a basic threshold for feeling the pain of the other,” Army Radio reported.
Ghattas added, “You turned your wedding into a base political issue in order to score a few points with the right.”
His post was later deleted.
Because the speaker’s wedding was attended by so many important Israelis, including most of the country’s politicians, security established a no-fly-zone over the celebration’s location, the Ronit Farm near the central coast between Netanya and Herzliya.