Far-right MKs get into shouting match with Arab lawmakers, accusing them of supporting terror

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"

Religious Zionism MK Tzvi Succot shouts during a parliamentary committee hearing on February 12, 2024. (Screen capture/X)
Religious Zionism MK Tzvi Succot shouts during a parliamentary committee hearing on February 12, 2024. (Screen capture/X)

Ultranationalist MKs Tzvi Succot (Religious Zionism) and Yitzhak Kroizer (Otzma Yehudit) get in a shouting match with Ra’am MK Iman Khatib-Yassin, accusing the Arab lawmaker of supporting terror and denying Hamas atrocities committed on October 7.

During a discussion of the 2024 amended budget in the Knesset Finance Committee, Sukkot calls Khatib-Yassin an “enemy and a supporter of terrorism” while Kroizer says she should be “ashamed” of herself for showing her face in the Knesset.

“You said ‘we don’t rape women,'” Sukkot and Kroizer assert, prompting Khatib-Yassin to shoot back that they are “racist” and “fascist.”

“When we say ‘together we will win,’ it means we will beat you, you are supporters of terrorism,” Sukkot declares.

Last November, Knesset’s Ethics Committee sanctioned Khatib-Yassin because she had “denied atrocities” committed by Hamas. Under pressure to resign from her party leadership, Khatib-Yassin later apologized for her statement that videos circulated by the IDF of the atrocities committed by Hamas did not show “rape of women” nor “slaughtering of babies.”

The current budget has come under criticism from Arab MKs because it cuts about 15% of funding for a five-year plan intended to advance the social and economic integration of Arab Israelis.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the Shin Bet and National Security Council warned last month that such cuts could “intensify the risks of an outbreak of violence.”

Last week the Knesset plenum passed a preliminary reading of a bill criminalizing the denial, minimization or celebration of the Hamas terror group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed over 1,200 people and saw more than 240 people taken hostage in Gaza.

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