Hadash MK Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint List parliamentary faction, wrote to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Thursday, June 30, and demanded that he open an investigation against Israel’s far-right Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman on suspicion of incitement to violence after he called MK Hanin Zoabi (Joint List – Balad) “a terrorist.”
MK Hanin Zoabi and Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked in the Knesset plenum (Photo: Knesset)
“Yesterday, Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman published a post on his Facebook page with these words: ‘IDF soldiers will continue to fight against terrorists in the sea, air and land – and that includes MKs who travel at sea and are members of the Knesset,'” Odeh wrote in his letter. “The above call,” he claimed, “is incitement to violence, which is prohibited by law and carries with it a penalty prescribed by law. There is a real threat that there will be someone who will see these words as instructions and act to harm MK Hanin Zoabi in accordance with the words of the Minister of Defense.”
Odeh further argued that “the Minister of Defense is known for his statements inciting violence against the Arab population and against the Arab public’s representatives. Before the last elections, during a conference at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, he was quoted as answering a question which related to Arab citizens of Israel and saying that ‘anyone who is against us, there is nothing to do other than pick up an axe and bring it down on his head.'” “Mr. Liberman’s reiterated statements calling to use violence against Arab citizens constitute a real and imminent threat from the moment he was appointed Minister of Defense,” wrote Odeh.
Related:
