Arab MK Zoabi: Jews not entitled to self-determination
Joint List MK Haneen Zoabi made these remarks in the US last week.
By LAHAV HARKOVHaneen Zoabi speaks at Central Elections Committee hearing to ban her from running for Knesset(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The Jewish people do not have the right to self-determination, though Palestinians do, Joint List MK Haneen Zoabi said in a speech in Dallas last week.Zoabi said “the Jews are not a nationality, so we cannot talk about self-determination for the Jewish people.”However, she added, “the Israelis, they can have self-determination, but not as a Jewish State, within a secular democratic state.”On Saturday, Zoabi was the keynote speaker at a gala in Dallas for the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, an American pro-Palestinian organization.Zoabi called for Palestinians to “define the matter of self-determination – not for the Jews, for the Israelis.”The Jerusalem Fund removed the video of Zoabi’s speech from YouTube, but a 40-second clip is still available on the Channel 20 News website.According to Channel 20’s translation of the speech, Zoabi said it is “absurd” to think that Jewish and democratic can go together, and that Israel has racist laws, citing the Law of Return as an example, as well as not automatically allowing Palestinian spouses of Israeli Arabs from automatically becoming citizens.According to one of the Basic Laws, anyone who denies Israel’s existence as a Jewish and Democratic state, incites to racism or supports armed conflict against Israel by an enemy or terrorist organization is disqualified from running for the Knesset. Both Zoabi and the Balad party, of which she is a member and which is currently part of the Joint List, have been blocked by the Central Elections Committee on those grounds, however, the Supreme Court overturned the ban.Zoabi was suspended from the Knesset for six months in 2014 for incitement, after she justified Hamas shooting rockets at Israel and the abduction of three Israeli teens by Palestinians.
