Arab and coalition MKs snub each other with mutual boycotts

In a series of reciprocal boycotts, coalition MKs and Mks from the Joint (Arab) List staged walkouts Monday during a number of speeches at the Knesset’s opening session.

Joint List members were the first to walk out, leaving the plenary en masse during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the ceremony inaugurating parliament’s winter session.

The Joint List move came in response to an announcement earlier in the day that MKs from the Likud-led governing coalition were planning to stage a walkout during all plenary speeches by Joint List lawmakers, over the predominantly Arab faction’s decision to not send any representatives to the funeral of former president Shimon Peres.

After the opening ceremony, coalition members fulfilled their promise, leaving the plenary when Joint List MK Abu Taleb Arar spoke from the podium. Three coalition MKs — Likud’s Oren Hazan and Yehuda Glick, as well as Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein — appeared to break ranks and remained in the chamber.

Knesset members were returning from a three-month summer recess, during which Peres, the longest-serving MK in Israel’s history as well as a former prime minister, died.

In the wake of his death, the Joint List announced that its members would not participate in the funeral, citing a “complicated” history.

Party chair Ayman Odeh defended the unanimous decision to stay away from the funeral, saying at the time that it was a “national day of mourning in which I have no place; not in the narrative, not in the symbols that exclude me, not in the stories of Peres as a man who built up Israel’s defenses.”

In response, MKs from the six parties in the coalition would leave the Knesset chamber when members of the Joint List spoke from the podium during all sessions this week, coalition chair David Bitan told reporters Monday.

The boycott of the 13-member coalition of Arab parties, the fourth-largest faction in the Knesset, was initiated by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who leads the Yisrael Beytenu party, and backed by Netanyahu.

But the Joint List MKs got there first, making their conspicuous exit as the prime minister began to speak.

Odeh had told his party’s faction meeting that he was “not surprised” at the coalition’s planned move, but said the boycott could not affect the party’s presence in the Knesset. “Even if you leave the plenum, even if you shut your eyes really tightly, we will still be here,” he said. “We will continue acting in all arenas, including the parliamentary one, to promote peace and equality.”

Speaking at Yisrael Beytenu’s faction meeting, Liberman praised the planned walkout, calling the Joint List MKs “representatives of terror groups in the Israeli government” who are “not legitimate [and] not wanted here.

“I hope that same boycott will continue until the end of the session, and will not be a one-time thing,” he said.