Far-left MK’s tweet comparing Israel to Nazi Germany sparks renewed calls for impeachment
Hadash-Ta’al legislator Ofer Cassif compares Israeli plans for ‘voluntary migration’ from Gaza to flight of Jews from Germany ahead of World War II
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Right-wing lawmakers called once again for the impeachment of far-left MK Ofer Cassif after he posted a tweet comparing Israeli plans to encourage voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza to the flight of German Jews abroad before World War II.
In a post on X on Tuesday morning, 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, stating 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.”
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.
Cassif has condemned any “Arab deportation and exile” and promised that “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 deportation by force, because we will not allow it to happen.”
Following Cassif’s tweet on Tuesday, Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen filed a complaint with the Knesset Ethics Committee, calling him a “terrorist supporter” and complaining about “his vile and disgraceful comparison of the voluntary emigration program for Gaza residents to the voluntary emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany.”
Cohen said that he would begin collecting MKs’ signatures in order to begin the process of impeaching Cassif, just one day short of a year since a previous attempt to remove him from the Knesset failed.
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.
A previous effort to impeach Cassif over his public support for a South African motion accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice failed last February when it only garnered 85 votes in the plenum.
In an effort to make sure that this does not happen again, Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir announced on Tuesday that his party was submitting a bill to lower the required number of lawmakers required to approve an impeachment to 80.
“Within the framework of the migration plan – the first who needs to leave the country is Cassif,” he tweeted, criticizing Opposition Leader Yair Lapid for not backing the first impeachment vote.
Despite last year’s impeachment proceeding’s failure, the Knesset Ethics Committee voted unanimously in November to suspend Cassif from the Knesset for six months over comments he made about the Israel Defense Forces and the war in Gaza.
Citing what it called a “systematic pattern of action” for which he failed to show remorse, the committee based its decision on a number of incidents for which Cassif has drawn criticism in recent years, such as a tweet in which he described Palestinian gunmen fighting against the IDF in the West Bank city of Jenin as “freedom fighters.”
Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer, the driving force behind last year’s impeachment push, condemned Cassif as a “anti-Israel propagandist with no limits.”
“His comparison between the voluntary exodus of Gaza residents, fleeing the terror of Hamas that condemns them to a life under a reign of terror, blood, and fire, and the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany is not only a vicious lie — it is a despicable blood libel,” he tweeted.
“I ask for the millionth time, is this an MK or an official Hamas spokesman? What is certain is that he should not sit in the Israeli Knesset!”
According to the Israel National News site, Cassif and other members of the Hadash-Ta’al party met with Knesset Ethics Committee chairman MK Moshe Roth of the United Torah Judaism party on Monday afternoon to discuss a number of complaints made against its members.
יו"ר ועדת האתיקה ח"כ הרב משה רוט נועד היום עם חברי הכנסת של מפלגת חד"ש-תע"ל, לדון בריבוי הקובלנות שהצטברו על שולחן ועדת האתיקה בנוגע להתבטאויות חברי הכנסת של המפלגה במליאה ובוועדות הכנסת pic.twitter.com/NRVhbAVNUV
— חזקי ברוך (@HezkeiB) February 17, 2025
The discussion came just under a month after party chairman Ayman Odeh sparked outrage across the political spectrum by declaring that he was “happy for the release of the hostages and prisoners” as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The longtime leader of the country’s main Arab political bloc made the comments on X when three Israeli civilian women who were kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre were released from the Gaza Strip after more than 15 months of captivity. Hours later, in accordance with the terms of the deal, 90 Palestinian security prisoners were released by Israel to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“Now we must free both peoples from the yoke of occupation,” Odeh wrote at the time. “We were all born free.”
Many Israelis were outraged by the comparison between hostages taken during a terror onslaught and prisoners accused and convicted of involvement in terrorism.
The veteran Arab legislator later defended himself against the criticism, stating that he was saddened that he had hurt the families of hostages.
“My perspective as a Palestinian citizen of Israel probably differs from the perspective of many Jewish citizens of Israel. While it is clear that many of you tend to see primarily the Jewish suffering, I see and feel the suffering of both peoples,” he stated.
In response, Likud MK Avichai Boaron said that he would begin the process of collecting signatures in order to impeach Odeh.
