Jerusalem – Balad MKs do not deserve to be in the Knesset after they visited terrorists’ families, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday evening.
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The comment came in response to three Joint List MKs’s meeting with 10 families of terrorists this week, including one who killed three Israelis. MKs Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi and Basel Ghattas met with the families of terrorists whose bodies have not been released by Israeli authorities, including the father of Baha Alian, who, together with an accomplice, killed three people by shooting and stabbing passengers on a bus in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood on October 13, 2015. Police shot and killed Alian at the site of the attack.
Netanyahu asked Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to examine what steps can be taken against the lawmakers.
Palestinian Media Watch brought to light on Thursday a Facebook post by Balad, one of the parties making up the Joint List, calling Alian a Shaheed, or “martyr” in Arabic. The same title was used to describe other terrorists whose families were in the meeting.
The Facebook post featured a video clip of Alian’s father, Muhammad Alian, saying that the visit was “warm and productive” and that the lawmakers “listened to the suffering and pain of the shaheed’s families,” and promised to make every effort to pressure the Israeli government to release terrorists’ bodies.
In addition, Alian said the MKs planned to meet with the families again, to update them on their efforts.
Palestinian news agency Maan reported that the meeting in east Jerusalem opened with a moment of silence and a reading from the Koran, after which Muhammad Alian, “the official spokesman of the martyrs’ families” welcomed the lawmakers, according to a translation by Palestinian Media Watch
The MKs emphasized their Palestinian identity, Maan reported, and said they will do all they can to pressure Israeli decision-makers so that the bodies will be buried, as not burying a body is a severe sin.
“The [MKs] saluted the families’ strong stance and their endless struggle against [Israeli] aggression,” the report reads.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett called the visit a stain on Israel’s history.
“I call on the Arab public: You are better than them. Reject them. Condemn them. We will not have unity among us if our public representatives meet with our murderers,” Bennett said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said “Arab MKs do not miss an opportunity to support terror. They foremost harm their own voters, because they do not represent or promote anything other than supporting terrorism and activity against the State of Israel.
“The Arab public should be the first to come out against its representatives that are acting as agents of terror and not as its representatives in the Knesset,” she added.
Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman called the visit “proof that Joint List MKs in general and specifically those from Balad are representatives of terrorist organizations in the Knesset.
Liberman said the Balad MKs’ meeting with the families “just a reminder to those who need it in the government and law enforcement, that the terrorists must be removed from the Knesset, and preferably from the State of Israel as well, as soon as possible.”
Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky (Bayit Yehudi) said it is clear that there are supporters of terrorism in the Knesset.
“We must change election laws so that those who behave immorally and harm the State of Israel cannot sit in the Knesset,” he stated.
MK Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin (Zionist Union) said the Balad MKs were “cutting the last strings attaching them to Israeli society, with their own hands. We cannot stand by while MKs visit the families of terrorists who hurt and murdered Israelis.”
MK Anat Berko (Likud) said: “I can’t imagine a possible parallel situation, in which members of Congress visited the family of Muhammad Atta, who is responsible for the 9\11 attacks.
“Who do Balad members identify with? With the murderers of our people?” she added.
MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) tweeted: “Let me get this straight: Israeli MKs meet with terrorists’ families and not the victims’ and we’re still paying their salaries?”
A Balad spokesman responded that “the MKs met with families that asked to release their sons’ bodies for burial. The request was sent to the Public Security Minister.”
Palestinian Media Watch, which first reported the Palestinian MKs’ visit, is an Israeli research institute studying Palestinian society, focusing on its media and schoolbooks controlled by the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas.
talk is cheap from the days of the tzadik Kahane this was going on and he was silenced, BIBI is too weak to do anything now. We need real leadership and if Bennett can appeal to Arabs conscience that shows he doesn’t get the issue either.
Agreed! Those who are seeking to kill fellow Jews are not worth to live.
Having said, one can not even begin to think the huge Chilul Hashem the picture in this article makes. To see frum Jews with long beards and payos sitting in the Israeli parliament is the greatest CH. Even IF all members of the Knesset would of been Shomrai Shabbot and even IF ALL Israelis would of been observant still it is not allowed to have a Jewish state before the coming of Moshicah.
How sad.
Should this issue have been addressed long ago? The Knesset has included several Arab MK’s, in their democratic pattern. These politicians have been anti-Israel, and joined the government for the sole purpose of making trouble. They have participated in support of terror, terrorists, the blockade busting mission, and numerous other gross violations. Most of them, if not all, have merited prison terms, not accolades. Their congratulating the families of dead terrorists is nothing new, and advertises where their allegiances lie. They should be indicted, prosecuted, and imprisoned. And if they choose to starve, we’ll use a smaller size body bag to ship their remains back.
all the seemingly good guys talk alot before they get elected. once they get elected something strange happens and they get so weak. there must be something we dont know. they all change gears!!
we need putin to be our prime minister
It is evident that the families of the murderers are aligned with the terrorists and not israel . All of the sympathisers have to be deported A.S.A.P. to gaza or syria , including those members of the knesset who visit them .
They don’t deserve to live in Israel either!
If being a terrorist is wrong, then supporting terror is also wrong and should be punishable by jail or deportation and the MK’s should be make an example.
Pass a bill that makes it clear!