MKs cheer news firebrand Arab lawmaker retiring, but she says it’s a nasty rumor
After word spreads that Balad’s Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka will not run for reelection, Knesset Speaker Edelstein tweets that they contributed nothing to parliament
Right-wing lawmakers responded with delight Wednesday after news spread that two outspoken Arab Knesset members were not going to run in the upcoming April 2019 elections, but one of them quickly put a damper on their celebrations, saying it was too early to write off her parliamentary career.
Hebrew media reports claimed that MKs Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka would retire from the Knesset due to internal regulations of their Balad party.
Balad, an acronym for National Democratic Assembly, is part of the 13-MK Joint (Arab) List, a coalition of Arab Israeli parties in parliament. Balad’s Knesset members have at times been vilified as a fifth column in Israeli politics, and other lawmakers have attempted to have them banned from being able to run for Knesset.
The Globes media outlet reported that Zoabi and Zahalka may be prevented from running again due to internal party regulations limiting the number of terms in office a member can serve — unless the party’s central committee votes to approve it.
Zoabi has raised fury over her past comments in support of the Gaza terror group Hamas, her labeling of IDF soldiers as “murderers” and other similar rhetoric.
Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein, of the ruling Likud party, welcomed the reported development.
“No Zoabi and Zahalka, and God willing, no Balad at all,” he tweeted. “That party contributed nothing to the Knesset, on the contrary it harms the entire Israeli public.”
MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli of the national-religious Jewish Home party recalled that although the Central Elections Committee had in the past banned Zoabi from running in the 2015 elections due to her extremist views, the Supreme Court overruled the decision and qualified her to run.
“Israeli society wanted to see Jamal Zahalka and Hanin Zoabi out of the Knesset but the courts again and again overturned decisions by the elections committee about the matter, until a Balad party regulation came along and sent them home,” she tweeted. “Am I the only one who finds it hard to hide a smile?”
Former defense minister MK Avigdor Liberman, who in the past was reprimanded by the Knesset Ethics Committee for calling Zoabi a “terrorist,” also applauded the news that the two MKs were supposedly on their way out.
“I welcome the expected retirement of Zoabi and Zahalka from the Israeli Knesset,” he tweeted. “At last part of the fifth element sitting in the Knesset is going home. I hope this ‘perfect match’ will not just leave the Knesset but also the country and go to suitable place — in Gaza or Damascus.”
However, Zoabi insisted in a statement that she had not made a decision about her political future.
“There was no debate in the Balad party about my running for the next Knesset,” she wrote. “The matter is not on the agenda, it is too early to discuss the matter. Apparently, someone doesn’t want to see me in the Knesset, and started to spread rumors as part of their deceitful campaign.”
In January police recommended fraud and other graft charges be brought against three Arab lawmakers from the Balad party — Zoabi, Zahalka and Juma Azbarga.
Indictments were recommended regarding donations the party received during the 2013 elections and party spending during the 2015 elections. The State Prosecution has yet to rule on the matter.
The Wednesday turmoil in Balad came after earlier in the day an official from the opposition Zionist Union faction said a group of five lawmakers were planning to leave the center-left alliance.
The party official named the Zionist Union MKs meeting in the Knesset to contemplate a possible breakaway as Eitan Cabel, Mickey Rosenthal, Nachman Shai, Yossi Yona and Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin.
The legislators later denied the report.
Lawmakers on Wednesday voted to dissolve the Knesset with elections set for April 9, 2019. Earlier this week the ruling coalition announced its decision to bring forward the elections from its scheduled date in November of next year.
