Summary
The NDA-Balad MK whose treatment Stateless Citizenship (2013) gives as the second case, after Azmi Bishara, of the targeting of Arab MKs: stripped of parliamentary privileges for sailing on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010 and barred by the Central Elections Committee in December 2012, a bar the Supreme Court unanimously overturned (Stateless Citizenship (2013), PDF p.96-98).
Details
- In the eighteenth Knesset Zoabi was the only Arab woman member, and though not the first Arab woman to enter the Knesset, the first elected for an Arab political party; in the 2013 elections she was joined in the race by Nabila Espanioly (Hadash), Asma Aghbarieh-Zahalka (Da’am Workers Party) and Nadia Hilou (Labour) (PDF p.84, footnote 35).
- On the Nakba Law she is quoted: “This is a kind of law to control our memory, to control our collective memory. It’s a very stupid law which punishes our feelings. It seems that the history of the victim is threatening the Zionist state” (PDF p.74, footnote 13, quoting the Electronic Intifada, March 29, 2011).
- On May 31, 2010 she participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aboard the MV Mavi Marmara; her parliamentary immunity prevented her detention, but she was extensively interrogated after the raid and called for a transparent and independent international investigation (PDF p.96-97).
- On June 7, 2010 the Knesset House Committee voted to strip her parliamentary privileges; the vote passed on July 13, 2010 revoked her right to a diplomatic passport, to financial support for legal representation, and to visit countries without ties to Israel, and denied her the right to contribute to Knesset discussions and vote in committees (PDF p.97). The sessions were confrontational, with racist and sexist statements, attacks and threats, and calls for her criminal prosecution and for revocation of her Israeli citizenship (PDF p.97).
- In May 2011 she was banned from the Haifa University campus from speaking with the Balad student group, despite her right as an MK under the Knesset Members (Immunity, Rights and Duties) Law to enter a campus without restrictions; she attended, and accused the university of “using the same tactics as the Shin Bet security service to keep Arab political activity to a minimum” (PDF p.97, footnote 63).
- On December 19, 2012 the Central Elections Committee voted narrowly against disqualifying NDA-Balad and the United Arab List entirely but approved by 19-9 barring Zoabi from running for the nineteenth Knesset for her flotilla participation; Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein opposed the ban, and by December 30 the vote was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court, allowing her to run in the January 2013 elections (PDF p.97-98).
Related pages
Stateless Citizenship (2013), Azmi Bishara, Freedom Flotilla, Nakba Law, National Democratic Assembly