BICOM

The Knesset yesterday approved controversial legislation which would empower the legislature to remove a member from office for incitement to violence or racism and support for armed conflict against Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spearheaded the legislation, said that the new law “put an end to the absurd” and that “those who support terrorism against Israel and its citizens will not serve in the Israeli Knesset”.

However, opponents of the bill say that the law sullies Israeli democracy. Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai said: “History will not forgive those who had a hand in this.”

Under one of Israel’s Basic Laws, the the contents of the new law are already codified as reasons for preventing someone running for a parliamentary seat.

The new law would require 70 of the Knesset’s 120 MKs, at least 10 opposition MKs among them, to petition the Knesset House Committee. Should three quarters of the committee approve the complaint, the question of impeachment would be subject to a full Knesset vote. It would require 90 MKs to vote in favour to remove a Knesset member from office, who would then be permitted to appeal to the Supreme Court. The stringent requirements make it unlikely that the law will be applied other than in extreme situations.

The law was eventually passed by a vote of 62 MKs to 47. The impetus for the legislation was an incident in February in which three Joint Arab List MKs, Jamal Zahalka, Hanin Zoabi and Basel Ghattas, had their parliamentary activity limited by the Knesset Ethics Committee. They controversially met with the families of Palestinians killed while carrying out terror attacks and expressed solidarity with them, by observing a silence in memory of their relatives, described as “martyrs”. The incident sparked debate over further measures.

Last month, there were additional calls to sanction Zoabi after she took to the Knesset podium and called Israeli soldiers who were involved in the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident “murderers”.