MK Zoabi goes to cops over Danon video

MK Hanin Zoabi filed a complaint with police accusing fellow Knesset member Danny Danon of incitement and defamation, after he distributed a video portraying the Arab-Israeli lawmaker as a terrorist.

Zoabi said she had received threats following the publication of the campaign video, which portrays Danon as an Old West lawman promising to run Zoabi and other Arab political “baddies” out of town.

Danon, a former deputy minister on the Likud party’s right flank, is hoping to oust Netanyahu from the party’s leadership in primaries scheduled for next week.

The video, set to the tune of “Oh Susanna,” attempted to capitalize on dislike of the firebrand Balad MK, who was recently suspended from the Knesset for six months over remarks to the media.

The chorus to the song is “Oh Zoabi, start to cry, my dear, because now Danny the real right winger is here.”

In the video, Danon is seen locking Zoabi behind bars along with Balad party founder Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel amid allegations that he spied for Hezbollah and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

Danon also attacks other lawmakers in the musical clip, including Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni.

According to Israel Radio, the police have forwarded the complaint to their Investigation and Intelligence Division.

Zoabi has raised the ire of right-wing lawmakers in the past for her outspoken condemnations of Israeli activities.

A statement from her calling for “a siege” to be placed on Israel and her failure to condemn Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians over the summer earned her a six-month ban from participating in Knesset committee meetings.

“Danon and the like are political scum,” Zoabi told her party’s website, Arabs 48. “Danon is everything reprehensible in politics: racism, cheap and superficial populism. Danon and his ilk should realize that I’m a proud Palestinian, guided by my identity and my people’s historic rights.”

“The extremist is the one who doesn’t understand the difference… between democracy and the tyranny of the majority,” she said, noting that “Danon the individual” is not the problem, but rather “an entire atmosphere of racism which Danon is taking advantage of for cheep political gains.”

Danon, responding to the news that Zoabi had filed a complaint with the police, took additional jabs at the Balad MK.

“Those who serve as the representatives of Hamas in Israel need to go to jail rather than lecture others on the subject of incitement and freedom of expression,” the Likud MK charged on his Facebook page.

Elhanan Miller contributed to this report.