The Israeli Right still hasn't internalized that Palestinians exist

[Israeli]

Arabs are more present than ever in the Israeli public sphere, but attempts to marginalize them are growing at an even faster pace. A new law aimed at pushing Arab representatives out of the political system could wind up changing the rules of the game — in the worst possible way.

By Noam Sheizaf
Published July 21, 2016

The Knesset this week passed a law that will enable it to expel Arab MKs from their positions as elected representatives. The same day, a storm erupted over a program on Army Radio that examined a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Both events have one thing in common: they highlight Israeli right wing’s hopeless desire to make the country’s pesky Palestinian population simply disappear. That’s no easy task considering that proportionally speaking, there are more Arab citizens in Israel than African Americans or Hispanic Americans in the United States. And can anybody even imagine a U.S. without them?

Those on the right in Israel will tell you that they don’t oppose the Arabs themselves, just their ideas. That is, of course, feigned naïveté. As long as Israel is defined as a Jewish state, Arabs will always feel alienated from it. An Arab can become Israeli like he or she can become German or American, but he cannot become Jewish, which Israeli Jews wouldn’t want either. That’s the fundamental difference between the Israeli model and the Western democratic model, where even if there sometimes exist symbols of Christianity or some other nation, Western democracies are ultimately based on the idea of “a state of all its citizens.” In Israel, that idea is so terrifying to people that some want to criminalize even advocating for it.

And yet despite this unusual model, Israel has managed to maintain a mostly democratic system within its pre-1967 borders (though never a liberal one). It worked, somehow, because of the pragmatic attitude adopted by both the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority that survived 1948. For example, the unwritten compromise according to which Palestinians can vote and be elected, even if they oppose — quite naturally — the very idea of a Jewish state. Or that a Palestinian poet can be canonized even if, among other things, he wrote poems that portray Jews as the enemy, just as Israeli poets who saw Arabs as enemies enjoy an even more sacred stature.

What made it work was the separation that existed between the realm of culture and narrative, in which each nation holds on to their self-defined image of the world – sometimes to the extreme — and the tangible realm of actions, in which we all live together with various compromises and sometimes just by looking the other way. For the new Israeli Right, however, that isn’t enough. For them, the Jewish state needs to be completely Jewish in its culture, Jewish in its allocation of resources, Jewish in its political discourse, and so on. To be fair, that’s the spirit of the moment everywhere — we are living in an era that loves absolute justice, especially in the cultural sphere, and which scorns compromise. Among other reasons, that can also explain the rise of the nationalist Right across the globe.

Continue reading @
http://972mag.com/the-israeli-rights-palestinian-delusion/120791/

[shira]

1. Dumping terror supporting MK's = making Palestinians disappear, says +972.

Bunch of kooks.

"Live wherever you like, but don't live among us. Die wherever you like, but don't die among us."
-Mahmoud Darwish

Sounds like he was the hateful rightwinger.

Another dumb article by +972.

[Israeli]

2. :)......

Lieberman Compares Works by Palestinian National Poet to Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'

The defense minister admonishes Army Radio chief for a program about the poet, Mahmoud Darwish, broadcast by the station.

Gili Cohen Jul 21, 2016

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday compared Army Radio's broadcast of a program about Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish with "glorification of the literary marvels of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf."

Lieberman, as quoted by a ministry statement from a meeting with the radio's chief, Yaron Dekel, said the station's main role was to "strengthen social solidarity and not to widen social rifts."

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has summoned Army Radio chief Yaron Dekel over the broadcast Tuesday night about Darwish. The program was part of a series on formative Israeli texts in the station’s “University on the Air” program.

Lieberman asserted that "there is no intervention on the part of politicians in the programs broadcast on Army radio," the ministry statement said. Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit phoned Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman late Wednesday to remind him he has no authority to intervene in Army Radio’s programming.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.732504

[Little Tich]

4. It's ironic that a full-blown fascist like Lieberman is making comparisons with "Mein Kampf"...

Diversity is important in a democratic state, but it's seen as a political danger by the right-wing.

[shira]

5. Full blown fascists are those who deliberately target & murder Jews....

As well as their anti-Zionist supporters within the BDS movement, Mondoweiss, etc...

It doesn't really get more fascist than that.

[Little Tich]

6. So a card carrying member of Kach like Lieberman isn't a fascist?

Not even a little bit?

Lieberman Was Involved in Radical Right Kach Movement
Source: Haaretz, Feb 04, 2009

Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was once a member of the outlawed far-right party Kach, Haaretz learned yesterday.

Former Kach secretary general Yossi Dayan said he issued Lieberman, a prime ministerial candidate whose current electoral campaign against Israeli Arabs has provoked outrage, with a party membership card when he was still a new immigrant to Israel.

"I don't recall to what extent he was active in the movement, but if he denies [this], I am ready to testify in any forum that Lieberman was indeed a member for a short amount of time," said Dayan.

Kach was banned from the 1988 Knesset elections for inciting to racism.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/lieberman-was-involved-in-radical-right-kach-movement-1.269330

Anyway, do you think Arab Israeli culture has the right to exist, even if it doesn't promote a Zionist narrative?

[shira]

8. Kahanists are fascists, but Hamas & their supporters within BDS are arguably moreso....

The Kahane movement is practically dead. No one advocates on their behalf. Similar to the KKK.

Hamas is the present, Hamas is right now, with all their regressive fascist Left & far Right supporters who want Jews dead.

Anyway, do you think Arab Israeli culture has the right to exist, even if it doesn't promote a Zionist narrative?

Of course Arab Israeli culture has the right to exist.

But what is this culture if it doesn't promote a Zionist narrative? Can you define it?

[Little Tich]

11. It seems as if you think that Lieberman isn't a fascist.

I think that Lieberman is a fascist - every time he opens his mouth confirms it.

Apart from Hamas and BDS, which incidentally has nothing to do with the OP, I would say that Mahmoud Darwish is an example of Israeli Arab culture that doesn't promote a Zionist narrative. The problem for me is that I still think that Israel should act like a democratic state and treat all the different narratives of its multi-ethnic population equally. The current Israeli government doesn't do that, to put it mildly.

By the way, the Hamas must be destroyed thing that you put in every post makes them a bit difficult to interpret.

[shira]

17. Do you know what a real fascist is? I'm not sure you do...

Why don't you briefly describe what a fascist looks like, what they believe, what they do...? Be specific please.

Apart from Hamas and BDS, which incidentally has nothing to do with the OP, I would say that Mahmoud Darwish is an example of Israeli Arab culture that doesn't promote a Zionist narrative. The problem for me is that I still think that Israel should act like a democratic state and treat all the different narratives of its multi-ethnic population equally. The current Israeli government doesn't do that, to put it mildly.

If the narrative is that Israel has no right to exist, Jews are strangers in their own land & not a people worthy of self-determination, that terror against innocent random Jews is legitimate......then that's not something to be respected at all.

[Israeli]

13. Absolutely .....

Palestinian Poet Darwish Causes Israel No Damage

Accusing Darwish of incitement to terror is grotesque and it is the new commissars of Israeli culture who are the ones doing most of the damage to Israel.

Haaretz Editorial Jul 21, 2016

His poems are overflowing with longing for his conquered homeland. Some are poems about a national struggle for freedom and there are quite a few about love. Darwish became the eloquent artistic voice of the Palestinian people. The late Yossi Sarid, (Meretz) when he was education minister, included Darwish’s poems in school curricula, where they remain to this day. That raised a hue and a cry at the time, too.

The Army Radio program “University on the Air” that was devoted to Darwish brought down the wrath of the new commissars of Israeli culture, the muzzlers of free expression: Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev. The pair launched an unbridled and ignorant assault on Darwish and on Army Radio, which dared to present his poetry. Yesterday the head of Army Radio, Yaron Dekel, was even summoned to Lieberman’s office for a scolding. Lieberman told him that to devote a program to Darwish was like praising the literary quality of “Mein Kampf” on the air.

Darwish caused no damage to Israel. He merely expressed the heartfelt emotions of the Palestinians. Ignoring his words is ignoring words that impact the consciousness of Israel’s Arabs, 20 percent of this country’s population. And so the poem read on Army Radio, “Identity Card,” is certainly worthy of the title of “seminal Israeli text.” Accusing Darwish of incitement to terror is grotesque. Lieberman and Regev are the ones doing the main damage to Israel, when they turn it into a state that is unwilling to acknowledge the frame of mind of the people who live next to us, and turn Israel into a country that is interested only in artistic propaganda.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.732683

[Little Tich]

14. I have a problem with the idea that some cultures are better than others,

and that the government has the right to suppress cultural expressions that don't conform to their worldview. A democratic government should be democratic for all its citizens, not only the majority. This particular issue is about Israeli Arabs, but it happens everywhere when racist right-wingers are given political power.

[Israeli]

15. So do I Little Tich......

....." A democratic government should be democratic for all its citizens, not only the majority."..............................its why I am a post zionist .

Have a read of this ......

Summary

Israeli Ministers Miri Regev and Avigdor Liberman have attacked Army Radio over a broadcast featuring Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, even though his poetry is taught in Israeli schools.

Author Shlomi Eldar
Posted July 21, 2016

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/mahmoud-darwish-avigdor-liberman-miri-regev-poetry-arabic.html#ixzz4FDQJ6PJe

The summoning of the commander of the military radio station for “clarification” by the defense minister led to some angry responses. Zionist Camp Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich, for example, slammed Liberman’s reaction on Facebook, calling it “a step that can only be defined as characterizing fascist regimes.” The Meretz chairman, Knesset member Ilan Gilon, argued, “In a place where poetry is silenced, people will be silenced as well.”

“The poet’s freedom to write what he wants is the cornerstone of democracy,” Israeli poet Ronny Someck told Al-Monitor. “First you have to know and be familiar [with the poems]. Only afterward can you argue if you are pro or con.” Someck views Darwish’s poem collection as “the first bolt of the bridge we want to build between Jews and Arabs.”

“I don’t put Darwish’s books on the shelf of Arab writers,” said Someck. “I put them on the shelf of Israeli authors. Darwish was influenced by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. He was very familiar with Jewish poet Hayim Nahman Bialik’s poetry and was friendly with many Israeli writers and poets. If you want to get to know and understand your neighbor and the ‘other’ in your home, you must learn his or her language and literature.”

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/mahmoud-darwish-avigdor-liberman-miri-regev-poetry-arabic.html#ixzz4FDSC8jUG

[TubbersUK]

3. Interesting article, thanks. n/t

[FBaggins]

7. As with most of the nonsense from 972mag... this is a flat-out lie

The law says that if an MK is expelled, the MK is replaced by the next person on that party's list.

They can't honestly claim that the law is an attempt to get Arab representation out of the political system if any Arab MK that gets expelled is automatically replaced with another Arab MK.

[shira]

9. It's an entire industry of lies promoted & supported by pathological liars. n/t

[FBaggins]

10. The sadly entertaining part is that they don't realize how badly they're lying to themselves

Any object look at the history of the region will make clear that there is one side in this generations-old conflict that has a significant proportion of their population suffering from an inability to accept that the other side even exists... and who would be happy to wipe them off the map entirely...

... but it isn't the Israelis.

[Little Tich]

12. Do you think that other democratic countries should adopt similar laws?

As it is now, this kind of law doesn't exist in any other democratic country than Israel simply because it's seen as fundamentally undemocratic to vote out opposition politicians from the legislative body. I personally don't see how removing Arab MKs or threatening to remove them if they continue to represent their voters will make Israel more democratic...

[FBaggins]

19. Is your memory that short? Or is it just that "creative"?

Do you think that other democratic countries should adopt similar laws?

We just discussed this a couple days ago. You mistakenly claimed that there were no democracies with similar laws (except maybe Russia or Iran ) and then had pointed out three obvious ones (the US, UK, and Canada)

You tried desperately to spin that they were entirely different because in this case the purpose of the rule is different (it isn't, but it wouldn't matter in the least if it was)... but did you expect anyone to buy that? If a state wants to set their speed limit at 65 mph and you claim that nobody has a speed limit that low... will you be able to spin away the error because all of the states with similar or lower speed limits set them for safety reasons and this state is doing it to reduce carbon emissions?

Of course that would be nonsensical. All three major democracies that we discussed have "similar laws" (i.e., Constitution, rules of the legislature, etc.) that have much lower thresholds.

I personally don't see how removing Arab MKs or threatening to remove them if they continue to represent their voters will make Israel more democratic...

It doesn't have anything to do with making them more democratic or less. It allows them to keep criminals and traitors from holding on to seats in their national legislature. Kicking Bob Packwood out was not a decision to make the US more/less democratic.

[Little Tich]

21. If you can't understand the difference between ousting politicians for moral turpitude and having a

different political position, I can't help you.

As long as the rest of the civilized world, inluding the US, the UK, Italy and Canada knows the difference, it's OK anyway. The only place where it's not OK is Israel, where the Knesset can make a law to oust a politician for her political views.

[6chars]

22. inciting terrorism is more than a different political position

if someone were to do that, for example

[Little Tich]

23. If someone did, it would be illegal in most countries...

I don't know how it works in Israel though, as it seems as if Israeli ministers are promoting violence without repercussions:

Lieberman: Disloyal Israeli Arabs Should Be Beheaded
Source: Haaretz, Mar 09, 2015

MK Ahmad Tibi compares Yisrael Beiteinu head's vision to a 'Jewish ISIS'; foreign minister also reiterates support for transfer.

Israeli Arabs who are disloyal to the State of Israel should have their heads chopped off, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at an elections conference at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya this week.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/1.646076


Netanyahu appoints Ayelet Shaked—who called for genocide of Palestinians—as Justice Minister in new government
Source: Mondoweiss, May 6, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to appoint Ayelet Shaked as justice minister in his fourth government. Shaked is a Member of Knesset (MK) representing the far-right HaBayit HaYehudi (“Jewish Home”) party. She is known for her extreme, ultranationalist views.

During Israel’s summer 2014 attack on Gaza, MK Shaked essentially called for the genocide of Palestinians. In a Facebook post on July 1—a day before Israeli extremists kidnapped Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir and burned him alive—the lawmaker asserted that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and called for its destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.”

Read more: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/netanyahu-palestinians-government/

I've limited myself to incitement to violence only, but members of the Israeli government are making racist comments all the time, which seems to be a normal thing to do for Israeli politicians.

[6chars]

25. thanks for the lie from Mondoweiss

I looked up what Shaked said. She quoted someone who, after the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens, said this was a war with the Palestinian people, which is not a good thing to say. But what she said was not what Mondoweiss printed or implied at all. She never called for destruction or genocide at all. This is a common technique of, well, you people. You people put a fantastical characterization over something, and then you people condemn someone for that characterization. You people could legitimately criticize what she actually said, but when Mondoweiss then creates a falseheadline (she called for genocide) you used that as a fact since it was reported in Mondoweiss.

Then when someone you people admire like Mahmoud Abbas say something such as ....
“Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They [the Jews] have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem” “Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every shahid (martyr) will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.” ... you people somehow find doubt that it means what it actually says, you people create a different fantastical characterization and find that that characterization is something that can be ignored.

[Little Tich]

28. Are you implying that Shaked didn't agree with the content of the article she posted?

Just for the heck of it, let's have a look at the excerpt she posted from an unpublished article by Uri Elitzur, and Shaked's own rebuttal of the criticism in Jerusalem Post. I know this is getting a little bit off-topic, but I think that it's worthwhile to show that it's the Israeli government that's the problem, not the Arab MKs who stand up against racism and injustice. This will be a lenghty read, but it will help in showing whether Shaked was indeed inciting to genocide or not:

Netanyahu appoints Ayelet Shaked—who called for genocide of Palestinians—as Justice Minister in new government
Source: Mondoweiss, May 6, 2015
(snip, translation of Shaked's FB post of July 1)

The Palestinian people has declared war on us, and we must respond with war. Not an operation, not a slow-moving one, not low-intensity, not controlled escalation, no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings. Enough with the oblique references. This is a war. Words have meanings. This is a war. It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to define reality with the simple words that language puts at our disposal. Why do we have to make up a new name for the war every other week, just to avoid calling it by its name. What’s so horrifying about understanding that the entire Palestinian people is the enemy? Every war is between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, that whole people, is the enemy. A declaration of war is not a war crime. Responding with war certainly is not. Nor is the use of the word “war”, nor a clear definition who the enemy is. Au contraire: the morality of war (yes, there is such a thing) is founded on the assumption that there are wars in this world, and that war is not the normal state of things, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.

And the morality of war knows that it is not possible to refrain from hurting enemy civilians. It does not condemn the British air force, which bombed and totally destroyed the German city of Dresden, or the US planes that destroyed the cities of Poland and wrecked half of Budapest, places whose wretched residents had never done a thing to America, but which had to be destroyed in order to win the war against evil. The morals of war do not require that Russia be brought to trial, though it bombs and destroys towns and neighborhoods in Chechnya. It does not denounce the UN Peacekeeping Forces for killing hundreds of civilians in Angola, nor the NATO forces who bombed Milosevic’s Belgrade, a city with a million civilians, elderly, babies, women, and children. The morals of war accept as correct in principle, not only politically, what America has done in Afghanistan, including the massive bombing of populated places, including the creation of a refugee stream of hundreds of thousands of people who escaped the horrors of war, for thousands of whom there is no home to return to.

And in our war this is sevenfold more correct, because the enemy soldiers hide out among the population, and it is only through its support that they can fight. Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Actors in the war are those who incite in mosques, who write the murderous curricula for schools, who give shelter, who provide vehicles, and all those who honor and give them their moral support. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.

Read more: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/netanyahu-palestinians-government/

---

Exposing militant leftist propaganda
Source: Jerusalem Post, by AYELET SHAKED, 07/16/2014
(snip)

In a story headlined "Israeli Politician Declares War on the Palestinian People," Resnick actually suggested I compared Palestinian children to “little snakes,” and accused me of fomenting Palestinian genocide. This vilification was later picked up by several bloggers and reporters, all of whom were convinced of this frightening notion, without even a scrap of fact or truth.

Let's start with my July 1 Facebook post. It was written some 12 years ago, but never published, by a dear man, the recently departed journalist Uri Elitzur. The gist of his article was that once one side in a war attacks the other side's civilians, they can no longer morally claim a special status for their own civilians.

Go ahead, ask a Hebrew speaking friend to translate it for you, they'll confirm this is what my Facebook post was about. But you'll find not a trace of that in Resnick's account. Perhaps it's his own ignorance of the Hebrew language. After all, he got the text from Electronic Intifada, a website dedicated to daily and hourly vilification of my country.

All Resnick had to do to make Elitzur's sober, legally minded discussion sound like a speech made by Hitler himself, was to cherry pick words out of context. A call for the indiscriminate killing of children is a terrible thing. But what if the statement was that any time you kill our children, you're exposing your own children to the same fate? Still unsettling, but rational when you consider that they purposely use their kids as human shields. It's not a call for indiscriminate murder.

And then Resnick turned to character assassination. He cited an attack on me by Haaretz. They said I was “representative of an ideology unembarrassed by its racism.”

Haaretz, unfortunately, may look like The New York Times, but it is far from being a liberal, curious newspaper in the Anglo Saxon tradition. Expecting Haaretz to write about a political opponent like myself in an honest, informative—if critical—manner, is a little like expecting Gideon Resnick to offer an unbiased, honest citation from a pro-Zionist post.

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Exposing-militant-leftist-propaganda-363062

[6chars]

29. the content she posted obviously isn't the same as what mondeweiss said

and you continue to play the sane game. the article does not call for genocide and does not call for destruction of infrastructure or elderly or children, as you and Mondoweiss say. this passage does say people who facilitate terrorism and who incite and who place flowers for terrorists are enemy combatants. "more little snakes" is about terrorists who the complicit Palestinians cultivate, as in the multi-terrorist family we were reintroduced to last month:

http://matzav.com/palestinian-authority-hails-terrorist-who-butchered-hallel-yaffa-ariel-hyd-blames-occupation-for-his-death/

[Little Tich]

30. Frankly, if the article was about killing Jews instead of Palestinians, it would be just as bad.

Perhaps we see things differently, but I see this post as calling members of an ethnic group snakes and promoting killing them. I have a problem with that.

I think it'll be difficult to find something that Arab MKs have done or said that would top Lieberman or Shaked. One may wonder if Arab MKs are targeted because they're Arabs and nothing else...

And I don't feel that alleged Palestinian incitement is relevant to an Israeli issue - true or not...

[6chars]

32. the snakes in question are the terrorists

it is true, the terrorists are members of a particular ethnic group, but what make them worthy of being called snakes is that they murder people, not at all that they are members of an ethnic group. some do not think murder is ok even if it is done by people of that ethnic group.

[FBaggins]

20. Adding to the list from earlier in the week

Italy added such a rule in their Senate in 2012 and then expelled Berlusconi in 2013.

Some in his party claimed that the rule was changed just to get rid of a "center-right" politician of such significance.

"This is clearly a political decision to get rid of the leader of Italy's center right by judicial means," said Renato Brunetta, lower house leader of Berlusconi's People of Freedom party.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-berlusconi-idUSBRE9930ER20131004

[Israeli]

16. Well FBaggins.....

Its called "the Zoabi bill" over here ...........and its much more complicated than your simple explanation of calling us all liars .

Try reading this :

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/israel-arab-knesset-member-zoabi-on-her-way-out-new-bill.html

In response to a request from Al-Monitor, Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh said his party's members have not yet decided what to do. “In the event that one of the Knesset members is actually suspended from the Knesset, we will have to examine all our options. That includes turning to the courts and the international community,” he said. Odeh accused Netanyahu of spearheading the suspension bill with a clear goal in mind: to alienate and anger the Arab public to the point that it will boycott the next elections. Then the Arab sector would no longer constitute a political power capable of tipping the political scale and bringing down the government. (Arabs eligible to vote make up about 15% of the total number of Israelis eligible to vote — hence, in theory, 18 Knesset seats.) But even Odeh knows that the mission he faces now is to find the magic formula that will keep the Joint List intact, following the crisis it would undoubtedly face after the bill is conclusively passed into law by the Knesset.

[FBaggins]

18. It isn't very complicated at all

They have an MK whose behavior has been way over any reasonable line and they found that the most that could be done was suspend her for a few months because their rules lack the ability to expel a member the way that many democracies allow. So they're adding that rule (just like the UK just recently added it for their House of Lords).

That isn't that complicated... and it certainly isn't evidence that some Israelis can't accept the existence of Palestinians. It's one extreme MK who should not be a member... which is precisely what the link that you provided says. Even her own party recognizes that she's a disgrace and should not be a member.

they oppose her behavior and resent her for putting them all in the same sinking boat as far as the public is concerned.

...snip...

Publicly, most of the Joint List’s Knesset members and activists argue that the suspension bill is racist legislation directed against them by the right in Israel and especially by the prime minister. But in conversations with Al-Monitor, they also admit that Zoabi has brought this on herself — and tragically on them as well. Some even express relief and joy that the Zoabi albatross will soon be removed from around their necks.

[Israeli]

24. :).......

...........wow progress !!

You managed to read an article without calling Shlomi Eldar ( a Leftist journalist ) and Al Monitor
nonsense and liars .......congratulations

[TubbersUK]

26. So it's MKs who decide on expulsion?

Have I got that right?

If so, are there any checks and balances on that ? Because under the UK legislation voters decide - moreover, there are basically 2 opportunities for the voters to make that decision.

UK Recall of MPs Act 2015 - main provisions:

Parliament may invoke it in the event of an MP being convicted of criminal offence resulting in a jail term or if an MP has been suspended for 10 working days or more or if guilty of an expenses fraud.

A petition is then opened and if 10% of the MPs constituency electorate sign it, expulsion will occur

The expelled MP may stand for re-election in the resulting by-election if he/she wishes to do so

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/184324/Recall-Act-Factsheet.pdf

The Act introduces a process by
which an MP will lose their seat in
the House of Commons if a petition
to recall them is successful.

[FBaggins]

27. You've confused expulsions and recalls

The UK has both.

https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/g06.pdf

The Commons' ultimate power of discipline over
one of its own Members is expulsion, thereby
creating a vacancy and subsequent by-election in
that Member's constituency.

[TubbersUK]

31. No, I'm aware of the difference

Last edited Sun Jul 24, 2016, 09:41 PM - Edit history (6)

To the best of my knowledge, expulsion under House Rules (as opposed to the 2015 Act) relates to criminal convictions & corruption. A total of 3 MPs were expelled under House Rules in the whole of the 2Oth Century.

In any case, if not currently in prison for more than a year, an expelled MP who thinks he/she has been treated unfairly may ask the voters to decide by standing for re-election.

House of Commons Information Office
Disciplinary and Penal
Powers of the House

As stated in the introduction to this Factsheet, expulsion is the ultimate power available to the
House to remove those it considers unfit for membership. Members in the past have been
expelled for such crimes as perjury, forgery, fraud and corruption.

An expelled Member may seek re-election to the House, even within the term of the same
Parliament that elected him, a principle established in 1782 as a result of the case of John
Wilkes, who was expelled three times and once had his return amended in favour of his defeated
opponent.

There have been three instances this century of expulsion:
Horatio Bottomley (Independent, South Hackney), was expelled in August 1922, after being
convicted of fraudulent conversion of property and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.
Garry Allighan (Labour, Gravesend) was expelled on 30 October 1947, for lying to a committee
and for gross contempt of the House after publication of an article in the World's Press News
accusing Members of insobriety and of taking fees or bribes for the supply of information.
Peter Baker (Conservative, South Norfolk) was expelled on 16 December 1954, after being
sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for forgery.

https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/g06.pdf