Arab MK defends statements seen to approve of attacks on IDF soldiers

Amid an effort to have her banned from running for reelection in March, MK Heba Yazbak of the predominantly Arab Joint List party refuses to retract statements that some have perceived as condoning violence against Israeli soldiers.

In a recent interview with Channel 13, Yazbak said that “international law permits peoples under occupation to take action to liberate themselves.” When the interviewer pressed her and asked if she considered attacks on soldiers to be legitimate resistance she demurred, saying, “What isn’t legitimate is the continued occupation.”

Today, in her response to a query on the quote from Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who is processing the request to have her banned, Yazbak says she stands by the quote and insists that it does not imply support for violence.

“I didn’t say that I support, or call for, harming soldiers or any other person,” she says, maintaining that the comments do not amount to incitement to violence and thus should not disqualify her from running. “I stand by the things I said.”

Almost all of the Knesset’s Jewish lawmakers have united behind the efforts to ban Yazbak, including the centrist Blue and White party and parts of the left-wing Labor-Meretz.