Faced with impeachment, far-left lawmaker slams attempts to silence him

On Tuesday, Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen announced that he would begin collecting lawmakers’ signatures to initiate impeachment proceedings against MK Ofer Cassif, condemning what he described as the far-left legislator’s “vile and disgraceful comparison of the voluntary emigration program for Gaza residents to the voluntary emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany.”

In a post on X, Cassif, the only Jewish lawmaker in the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party, shared a picture of Jews lined up outside an emigration office in Vienna in 1938, writing that “this month, exactly 86 years ago, the ‘Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration’ was established in Berlin with the aim of encouraging voluntary emigration of German Jews.”

According to Basic Law: The Knesset, 90 Knesset members may vote to expel a colleague who expressed support “for an armed struggle” against the State of Israel. Once 70 signatures are collected, the matter is referred to the Knesset House Committee and, if approved there, goes to the plenum for a vote.

Cassif has been a vocal opponent of US President Donald Trump’s plan for postwar Gaza, eagerly embraced by Israeli leaders, to permanently relocate Palestinians living in the largely destroyed coastal enclave.

He is also used to being a center of controversy, having been disqualified from running for the Knesset by the Central Elections Committee in 2019 over his provocative comments, including calling then-justice minister Ayelet Shaked “neo-Nazi scum.” That decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

In November, Cassif was suspended from the Knesset for six months over comments he made about the Israel Defense Forces and the war in Gaza. Under the terms of his suspension, Cassif is not allowed to enter the Knesset plenum or committee meetings except to vote.

Speaking with The Times of Israel in his Knesset office on Wednesday afternoon, a year to the day after a previous effort to impeach him failed by five votes, Cassif was unapologetic — accusing his Knesset colleagues of attempting “to terrorize” him and insisting that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

The interview was conducted in English. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

The Times of Israel: It’s been a year since your colleagues tried to impeach you for your public support of a South African motion accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice. And now they are trying again. What is your reaction?

Ofer Cassif: The first aspect, which is the legal one, is that this is void because the law…is antidemocratic because it actually institutionalizes the tyranny of the majority. Because it allows the majority of MKs to impeach another MK simply because they don’t like one’s ideas, beliefs or sayings.

But if they cling to the law and if there is a necessity to appeal thereafter to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court follows the law, they have no case because the law is very clear. It says that there are only two bases for impeachment. One is supporting racism, which ironically means that if it was implemented, at least 80 percent of the members of the Knesset could not be here. The other basis is a support of violence or terrorism against Israel.

I oppose terrorism and I oppose racism. But obviously, they don’t care about it because persecution is on the table.

The Times of Israel: While you didn’t explicitly mention the present situation in Gaza in your tweet, it was widely interpreted as making a comparison. Was there an intention to be relevant to the present?

Ofer Cassif: Of course, that was my intention. [But] I didn’t make any comparison. The comparison was born in the heads of those who criticized or attacked me. So that says something. If they find a resemblance between the two, perhaps something’s there.

I didn’t make a comparison, although, by the way, I do not reject the right of someone to make it. But I did make a point in order to learn from history and to make inferences from history. The point was that you cannot coherently use, under the circumstances, the term voluntary migration. That’s the only point.

You cannot say that a person who is under threat of death, of destruction, et cetera, and wants to flee…is voluntarily emigrating.

The Times of Israel: To play devil’s advocate for a moment, would there be a difference between Jews in pre-war Germany who were forced out and Palestinians after Hamas launched a war that destroyed their homes? How do you square that circle?

Ofer Cassif: There’s no need to square the circle. I find it totally morally identical. Of course, there are differences. The Jews in Germany…hadn’t done anything against the Germans… But neither were they under occupation or under siege or persecuted [like the] Palestinians. The Palestinians in Gaza, the Palestinian people as a whole in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, including East Jerusalem, of course, have been living under a hellish occupation for more than 60 years.

And by the way, that [in no way] means that there is any justification for the war crimes and crimes against humanity of October 7 whatsoever. Not even the ongoing occupation and persecution and oppression of the Palestinian people. What happened on October 7 must be rejected 100%.

The second thing is that the Palestinian people didn’t launch a war against Israel. Those who are guilty of the crimes of October 7 are Hamas and some other elements of course. That’s not the Palestinian people. The Israelis, in general, are innocents, and the Palestinians, in general are innocents. There are those who are guilty of war crimes here and there and everywhere. In my view, [they] should be caught and brought to justice in The Hague.

The Times of Israel: Does that include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant?

Ofer Cassif: Yes. I mean, those who are suspected by an impartial institution, and I emphasize impartial institution, as suspects in war crimes, crimes against humanity and violation of human rights should be tried in The Hague.

The Times of Israel: There are politicians on the right who have framed encouraging emigration in a coercive manner, and there are those in the political center who have said that they believe anybody who wishes to relocate should be allowed to do so freely. Do you think there is a substantive difference between those two positions?

Ofer Cassif: No. I support free migration as a principle with no relation to what’s going on in Gaza or any other place. That should be the default. If someone says we should allow them, does it assume that before that they were not allowed? If that is assumed that they were not allowed, so that’s admitting that there was a siege conducted by Israel.

The Times of Israel: Doesn’t that rather imply that the Arab countries in the region wouldn’t take them in if they wanted to leave?

Ofer Cassif: No, that’s another issue. You cannot talk about the voluntary migration of someone whose habitat was destroyed, mass killing all around, and the infrastructure was totally demolished. You cannot call it voluntary migration. It is as if I came to you and I said ‘your money all your life’…you would have given me your money, and I would have said that you gave me your money at will. That’s the same. It’s crazy.

If we do support voluntary migration, those Palestinians who are descendants of refugees from the Nakba, from inside Israel, should be allowed to go back to their land.

Secondly, you have to oppose and abolish the law of return, because the law of return is against voluntary migration or free immigration because it says that if you are not a Jew or a relative of a Jew, you are not allowed to immigrate and be naturalized.

If we are consistent, let’s adopt all of those. But we will not because that has nothing to do with free migration or voluntary immigration. That is total ethnic cleansing, a very clear case of ethnic cleansing.

The Times of Israel: Do you believe that Israel is actually committing genocide in Gaza?

Ofer Cassif: Yes…and many experts in the world say so. It’s not a political slogan…The conclusion is very clear. One need not be a leftist like me. It’s very clear those who want to deny it, they lie or they want to simply evade the difficulties.

The Times of Israel: You recently tweeted that “even if we have to blow up the bridges, there will be no mass deportation by force.” Are you saying you would use physical violence?

Ofer Cassif: I support a non-violent resistance across the board, and I will cling to that. If, hypothetically, there is a violent action by the state, so violent action against is a must throughout history.

Cassif quotes the American Declaration of Independence’s statement that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

The Times of Israel: Unless we start rounding them up and forcing them into trucks, then the resistance should be nonviolent.

Ofer Cassif: Yes.

Facing the notion of ​​Arab deportation and exile, 'transfer', we must stand up and say sharply and simply: It will be impossible because we will not allow it. Even if we have to lie down under the wheels of trucks. Even if we have to blow up the bridges. There will be no mass…

— Ofer Cassif עופר כסיף عوفر كسيف (@ofercass) February 5, 2025

The Times of Israel: You have been suspended from the Knesset by the Ethics Committee and this week you and the other members of your party met with MK Moshe Roth (UTJ), the chairman of the committee.

Ofer Cassif: There are attempts to silence us and to pursue and to create an atmosphere of chilling effect..to terrorize us. There are attempts, again, to silence us, to prevent us from raising our political voice. We were elected not in order to represent those who disagree with us. It’s our right and obligation to represent as firmly as possible our values for which we were elected.

Since October 7, people have been arrested because of tweets [in which] they simply expressed sympathy for the children of Gaza, not for Hamas, perish the thought…There’s a fascist atmosphere.

The Times of Israel: During the first attempt to impeach you, your critics brought up a 2019 interview with the Haaretz daily in which you asserted that “an attack on soldiers is not terrorism.” Can you clarify that statement?

Ofer Cassif: I will quote [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. Netanyahu published a book [entitled] Terrorism: How the West Can Win. In this book, there is a quotation in which Netanyahu distinguishes between guerrilla combatants or guerrilla groups and terrorist groups.

Terrorists attack civilians and refrain as much as possible from confronting military forces. Those who attack or confront military forces are not terrorists. They are guerrilla groups. He said so. [But] by saying that they are not terrorists, that doesn’t mean that I support what they do. I support a nonviolence resistance.

The Times of Israel: So you’re saying on a legal level, it’s not terrorism, but that doesn’t mean it’s justified?

Ofer Cassif: No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I personally don’t think that I have the right to tell anyone who lives under occupation and oppression how to fight against one’s oppression, not only in the Palestinian case. But if you ask me as a human being, I personally support a non-violent resistance.

The Times of Israel: There has also been an effort to collect signatures to impeach the leader of your party, MK Ayman Odeh after he said he was “happy for the release of the hostages and prisoners” as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Ofer Cassif: I think it was not only legitimate what Ayman said, it was required. What did he say? He said he was happy to see people released.

That’s basic humanism. That’s a very humanistic statement. By the way, he was talking after 90 Palestinian prisoners were released, and the vast majority of them were actually hostages because they were so-called administrative detainees who were not accused of anything, mostly women and underage [people].

The only one who was convicted of supporting terrorism among members of the Knesset is [Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar] Ben Gvir. We’ve never supported terrorism, neither me nor my comrades and friends. That’s a sheer lie and smear.