Likud MK calls on attorney general to dismantle B'Tselem
B’Tselem Director-General Hagai El-Ad spoke in front of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFUpdated: OCTOBER 21, 2018 18:01Hagai El-Ad, Executive Director of B'Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organisation, poses in his office in Jerusalem December 16, 2015(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
Likud MK Nava Boker appealed to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit Sunday and the Israeli Corporations Authority, which regulates businesses and nonprofits in Israel, to shut down the left-wing NGO.Last Thursday, El-Ad urged the UNSC and the international community to take steps to halt the pending demolition of Khan al-Ahmar. He also spoke in general against Israel’s military rule of Area C of the West Bank and its actions against the Palestinians, including in Gaza.Boker said that Israel’s actions were determined by Israel’s democratically elected government.By calling for international action against the decisions of a democratically elected government of the State of Israel, El-Ad was acting against the state’s democratic nature, Boker said.“We will be happy to close down B’Tselem once the occupation is over and not a minute before that and meanwhile, we invite Knesset members and the public to join us in the cause of ending the occupation,” B’Tselem’s spokesperson Amit Gilutz said.At the UNSC, Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon had told El-Ad publicly in Hebrew, “You’re a wretched collaborator.”Earlier, in his address to the UNSC, El-Ad had said of himself, “I am not a traitor, nor am I a hero.”He added, "The heroes are the Palestinians who endure this occupation with courage and perseverance; who wake up in the middle of the night to find soldiers barging into their homes; who know that if a loved one is killed, impunity is all but guaranteed to the perpetrators; who stay on their land knowing that it is only a matter of time before the bulldozers arrive.”
