From Ben Gvir says bill to permit deporting terrorists’ families will soon apply to Arab MK
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"
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir appears to call to deport Arab lawmaker Ayman Odeh over comments he made regarding the Palestinian right to struggle against Israel.
Speaking at the Knesset Science and Technology Committee yesterday, the Hadash-Ta’al chair stated that, while Hamas’s attack on innocent civilians on October 7, 2023, constituted a “very deep moral injury,” he also believed that every nation “has a right to struggle against its conqueror.”
“This is true in every place in the world, and this is the right of the Palestinian people,” Odeh said, expressing his opposition to “harming innocent people.”
Calling Odeh the “representative of the terrorists in the Knesset,” Ben Gvir posts a video of the lawmaker’s remarks and quips that soon legislation allowing for the deportation of the families of terrorists “will also apply to you.”
The Knesset in November passed a bill permitting the deportation of family members of terrorists.
The controversial law gives the interior minister the power to expel a first-degree relative of someone who carried out an attack if they 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.”
Both the Justice Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office 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.
