Attorney general weighing incitement charge for Arab MK Zoabi

Arab MK Hanin Zoabi may be tried for incitement and offending a public servant over a July incident, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said Tuesday.

Weinstein summoned Zoabi, who is currently suspended from parliamentary activities over other statements, for a hearing upon the recommendation of the state prosecutor and other legal experts, a statement from his office said, in a move that was hailed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and several Likud MKs.

Should the legal efforts advance, the Balad party MK, known for provocative statements, would be prosecuted for an incident in July 2014 in a Nazareth courthouse, where she allegedly insulted policemen stationed at the building and urged others to harm the cops.

Zoabi reportedly referred to two policemen, both Arabs, at the courthouse as “traitors” and shouted at those present that they should “spit in their faces” for working for Israel, and they should “be afraid.”

In a statement on Tuesday, the state prosecutor said the incident could have spurred a violent confrontation, as it came at a time of heightened tensions in the immediate aftermath of the killing of 16-year-old Muhammed Abu Khdeir by Jewish extremists, and since the relatives of Arab Israeli detainees were present.

The statements “in the way they were said, and the circumstances in which they were said — there was a distinct possibility that these remarks would lead to violence against Arab policemen, especially the policemen at the scene, at whom she directed her cries,” the state prosecutor’s office maintained. The presence of the relatives of Israeli-Arab prisoners could have led to “stormy emotions and feelings of anger against the police,” it said.

A statement from the Balad party panned the decision and called for an urgent hearing on the matter.

The party said it planned “to convince the attorney general to retract his decision to try MK Zoabi, since there is no legal basis to prosecute her in this case.”

Liberman, meanwhile, welcomed the news, but said the MK should be tried not only for this incident, “but rather for openly and consistently undermining the State of Israel.”

“I hope that this time the High Court will not allow Zoabi to run once again for Knesset and will prove that those who act against the State of Israel and support its enemies cannot be a member of its parliament,” he said.

Likud MK Yariv Levin called on the state to prevent Zoabi from running for public office and strip her of Israeli citizenship, and said the controversial lawmaker should be “behind bars.”

Fellow Likud MK Miri Regev said: “It’s time to remove Zoabi’s [diplomatic] immunity and kick her out of the Knesset.”

A controversial campaign video released by Likud MK Danny Danon last week called for Zoabi to be jailed.

Earlier this month the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Zoabi that sought to overturn a Knesset decision banning her from all parliamentary discussions for six months over provocative media statements.

The Knesset’s Ethics Committee decided in July to sanction Zoabi for an interview given to Tel Aviv Radio on June 12, following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers south of Jerusalem. Speaking before the fate of the three was known, Zoabi told interviewer Sharon Gal that she did not consider the kidnappers to be terrorists, but rather “people who see no other way to change their reality.”

In a separate article published on her party’s website, also weighed by the Knesset’s Ethics Committee, Zoabi called for “a siege” to be placed on Israel and for an end to peace talks and Palestinian security coordination with it.