Following stormy debate, lawmakers advance measure to deport terrorists’ relatives
Bill allowing interior minister to expel, without trial, citizens who encourage family members to commit attacks ‘not constitutional,’ says rights organization ACRI
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"
Members of the Knesset House Committee voted 9-2 on Tuesday to advance a bill that would allow the government to deport the family members of terrorists who are Israeli citizens. It is expected to be raised in the Knesset plenum for the second and third readings necessary for it to become law as early as next week.
The controversial legislation, sponsored by Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, gives the interior minister the power to expel a first-degree relative of someone who carried out an attack if he or she had advance knowledge and either: (a) failed to report the matter to the police or (b) “expressed support or identification with an act of terrorism or published words of praise, sympathy or encouragement for an act of terrorism or a terrorist organization.”
The bill expressly applies to Israeli citizens, who would retain their citizenship even after being expelled from the country. It stipulates that after receiving information regarding an individual, the minister will convene a hearing during which a suspect will have the right to present a defense. The minister will then have 14 days to make a decision and sign a deportation order.
Both the Justice Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office have raised concerns about the legislation, which stipulates that those being expelled would be sent either to the Gaza Strip or other destinations, depending on circumstances, for between 7-15 years for citizens and 10-20 years for legal residents.
And while a representative of the Justice Ministry told lawmakers on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to provide an official position on the legislation, multiple members of his cabinet have come out in favor.
Minister-without-Portfolio Gideon Sa’ar, Transportation Minister Miri Regev and Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar all have endorsed the legislation — as has far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who declared on Sunday that he “expects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with all Likud lawmakers, to support this law in order to pass it.”
Ben Gvir later issued a statement calling on Opposition Leader Yair Lapid to vote in favor as well.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Ben Gvir urged lawmakers in the Knesset House Committee to approve the bill, although he insisted that the authority to order expulsions would be better placed with him rather than the interior ministry.
Tensions were high as the members of the committee debated the bill on Tuesday, with Likud MK Ariel Kallner arguing that Israel was facing an “enemy within” even as it fights against Hamas and Hezbollah abroad, and Ra’am MK Yasir Hujeirat accusing the bill’s backers of supporting “collective punishment.”
The debate over the law then devolved into a screaming match, with Knesset ushers forced to repeatedly restrain lawmakers following the entrance of MK Ofer Cassif, the only Jewish member of the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party.
Knesset ushers have to physically separate lawmakers Ofir Cassif and Almog Cohen pic.twitter.com/wq5zFF3IkV
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) October 29, 2024
As Cassif entered the hearing, he was confronted by the mother of an IDF reservist who said that he should be ashamed of himself for comments made about a fallen IDF serviceman earlier in the day.
As the ushers attempted to separate the two, Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen approached Cassif and began yelling, prompting the ushers to physically restrain both men.
Right-wing lawmakers then began shouting at Cassif, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calling him a “terrorist.”
As Cassif addressed the committee, which he called a “gathering of fascists,” lawmakers screamed at him to leave and called on chairman Ofir Katz to have him removed from the room.
“Lucky you didn’t bring your pager,” one MK quipped, referring to the mass attack attributed to Israel that saw thousands of Hezbollah pagers explode on the men carrying them.
Speaking with The Times of Israel, Oded Feller, the director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel’s legal department, dismissed the bill as mere “populism” — stating that it was “unclear how this will work on a practical level” and asserting that there were many ramifications of deporting a citizen that lawmakers had failed to address.
“The minister decides [to expel someone] and you put him on a plane? You throw people over the border with the Gaza Strip?” he asked. “It’s not constitutional in any way, shape or form. If there is one thing that citizenship ensures, it’s that you are not deported.”
The law already provides ways of dealing with people who encourage or materially support terrorism, Feller added, arguing that people who commit crimes should be tried by the courts.
However, members of the committee largely dismissed concerns that granting the power to deport citizens to a minister and not the courts could be legally problematic.
“This tool will allow us to prevent many terror attacks and as such I think it’s critical,” New Hope MK Ze’ev Elkin told The Times of Israel, asserting that the authority to deal with issues of citizenship and deportation resides with the interior ministry and that the legislation was fully in line with Israeli law.
Likud MK Nissim Vaturi likewise dismissed the need to involve the courts, arguing that the justice system was involved in “going after soldiers.”
Otzma Yehudit’s Cohen, meanwhile, insisted that the measure was consistent with international law and that a hearing in front of the interior minister would be sufficient.
Asked why the matter couldn’t be handled by the courts, Cohen claimed that the justice system was “totally disconnected from the Israeli street” and that even “Arab and the Muslim citizens in Israel actually support this law because they are also suffering from terror.”
