Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel submitted on Wednesday, October 15, a petition to the Supreme Court on behalf of MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash) against a decision of the Knesset Ethics Committee, to suspend him from participating in Knesset plenary and committee sessions for two months, starting next Sunday.
The Committee’s decision is the latest in a series of five disciplinary sanctions imposed on him during the 25th Knesset term, resulting in a cumulative suspension of ten months from Knesset work, including three sanctions imposed since the outbreak of the war on Gaza. It also follows an unsuccessful attempt to expel him from the Knesset, which fell short in the plenum by just five votes.
MK Ofer Cassif during a demonstration at Habima Square against war, genocide and starvation in Gaza, Tel-Aviv, August 23, 2025 (Photo: Zo Haderekh)
The Committee’s decision cited several statements and actions by MK Cassif, including social media post from October 2024 stating, “Those who remained silent and did nothing when my people and family were massacred in Europe 80 years ago are the same as those who remain silent and do nothing while Palestinians are being massacred now in Gaza.” In December 2024: “The painful and horrific truth must be shouted from every corner: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and the killers persist in their deadly drive.”
In February 2025, during a protest, held a sign calling to reject the genocide, occupation, and ethnic cleansing, and criticized government policies in Gaza and the West Bank. In May 2025, in a Knesset speech, he referred to Israel’s military actions in Gaza as “war crimes” and urged soldiers to refuse orders.
The petition challenges the Knesset Ethics Committee’s decision of 9 July considering the repeated and cumulative sanctions imposed by the Knesset’s Ethics Committee against MK Cassif. It argues that the Committee – a political body composed of Knesset members – has used its disciplinary powers to silence dissent and punish legitimate political expression in this case.
The petition asserts that Cassif’s statements fall squarely within the scope of protected political expression and form part of the core duties of an elected representative. By treating terms such as “war crimes,” “genocide,” or “”ethnic cleansing” as ethical violations, the Committee has turned the legitimate use of international legal terminology into grounds for disciplinary action, while ignoring harsher – and even genocidal – statements made by other Jewish-Israeli members of the Knesset.
For instance, MK Nissim Vaturi (Likud), who called on the military to “burn Gaza now,” and MKs Tali Gottlieb (Likud) and Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism), who accused Arab MKs of “supporting the enemy” and being “spokesmen for Hamas,” received minimal or no sanctions. This selective, discriminatory enforcement of the Knesset’s ethical standards is part of a broader effort to suppress anti-war voices and silence members of the political minority – Arab and left-wing elected representatives – whose views challenge the dominant Israeli-Zionist consensus.
The petition argues that the cumulative effect of these sanctions is the partial removal of an elected representative from the Knesset, a move that prevents MK Cassif from fulfilling his parliamentary duties on behalf of his constituents, for a total of ten months thus far. Adalah therefore called on the Supreme Court to annul the Committee’s latest decision and to establish clear judicial criteria to limit the Committee’s powers, to prevent their further use as a tool for political persecution and suppressing dissent.
Earlier this year, the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians issued a decision concerning MK Cassif’s earlier suspension. The IPU found that, “In suspending Mr. Cassif, the Knesset Ethics Committee punished him on account of his rightful exercise of freedom of speech by expressing a political position against the State of Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza; and considers, therefore, that Mr. Cassif’s suspension was arbitrary and that it hinders his ability to exercise the mandate entrusted to him by his constituents and to represent them effectively in the Knesset.”
On Monday, following protest made by MK Cassif and MK Ayman Odeh during US President Donald Trump’s speech in the Knesset plenum, Shai Glick, CEO of the B’Tsalmo mccarthyist and far-right organization, submitted an official complaint to Knesset Ethics Committee calling for significant sanctions against the two lawmakers.
“During the historic speech by Israel’s greatest ally – the president of the world’s most powerful nation – Odeh and Cassif chose to behave disgracefully by waving signs, shouting, and deliberately disrupting the event. This is not protest or freedom of expression; it is a vile provocation that undermines the dignity of the Knesset and damages Israel’s foreign relations,” Glick wrote. Glick demanded “harsh disciplinary action” against the two Hadash MKs, including another six-month suspension and a financial penalty of 100,000 shekels (30.000 dollars).
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=33035
