Khenin to TV2: Deliberate Firing at Civilians Is an Act of Terrorism

“What happened was unimaginable. Netanyahu steps up to the Knesset podium and accuses us of supporting the firing of missiles at Israel! We have had a position over the years which Netanyahu knows very well: We are against the harming of civilians; we are we opposed to civilian casualties whether in Israel, Syria, Lebanon, of Gaza. This has been our position throughout the years. This is not something new,” said Hadash MK Dov Khenin (Joint List) in an interview to prime-time Channel 2 news. Khenin, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI), continued: “In 2006, Hezbollah launched rockets against Israel, targeting Haifa and the Galilee. We came out very strongly against it – not only here, on Channel 2, which is easy, but on Al-Jazeera as well facing the entire Arab world. Former MK Issam Makhoul went on Al-Jazeera and spoke out against the firing of rockets on Israeli citizens.”

MK Khenin with Hadash MKs Ayman Odeh and Abdallah Abu-Ma'arouf in a demonstration against occupation in central Tel-Aviv, near Dizengoff Center

MK Khenin with Hadash MKs Ayman Odeh and Abdallah Abu-Ma’arouf in a demonstration against occupation in central Tel-Aviv, near Dizengoff Center (Photo: Zu Haderech weekly)

In the interview Friday evening to Channel 2 television, Khenin stressed that he viewed any deliberate targeting of civilians as an act of terrorism, and emphasized that Hadash, the CPI, and the Joint List do not in any form support the Lebanese group, saying any such accusations against it were disingenuous. “I had a very difficult week,” said Khenin, a senior member of Hadash, one of the four factions that united ahead of last year’s elections to form the Joint List. “I belong to a Jewish-Arab, socialist peace movement, and suddenly we are labeled as supporters of a religious fundamentalist military organization. Bottom line, we were labeled as if we were in favor of missiles being fired at us. Really? You can do many things in a political debate… but really, there are limits.”

MK Khenin said he agrees that his faction’s condemnation of the Gulf States should have been more carefully worded. He insisted the main focus of the text was not to absolve Hezbollah of terrorist activity, but rather to point to the Arab countries’ hypocrisy when dealing with the Islamic State group (Daesh). “Hadash issued a statement, a long text, whose subject was not at all Hezbollah, the real issue was Daesh,” he said. “In the announcement by Hadash there is paragraph that denounces the hypocrisy of the rulers of the Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, [who] on the one hand, support Daesh and organizations like Daesh, and on the other hand want to be seen as fighting terrorism,” Khenin continued.

“I’m not hiding behind anything – it was not written well and that’s too bad. If it had gone through some debate – the text would have been written differently. If it would have come to the faction members in the Knesset, it would have been written differently. But then again that very night, we – the faction – we sent out a statement that says exactly what I told you just now: Hezbollah is a religious, military, fundamentalist organization. We are opposed to attacks on civilians,” he said and then, when asked why the Joint List party failed to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization, replied, “Deliberate firing at civilians is an act of terrorism.” Khenin then blasted Netanyahu for his verbal attacks on the Joint List MKs following the statement.

Adel Amer, secretary-general of the CPI, told the Al-Monitor website: “We only expressed an opinion, not support. We condemned the decision of the Gulf Cooperation Council because we believe it serves its [member states’] interest to continue [their] existence as benighted regimes. It’s trying to shift the weight from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is the key problem in the Middle East, to an ethnic conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, which isn’t the real conflict.”

Amer gingerly continued to further explain his position: “We, as a party, do not agree with everything Hezbollah represents. We certainly don’t agree with it as an ethnic, religious and Shiite party, and we certainly object to the killing of civilians. But how can you call an organization that’s fighting for the liberation of its land a terrorist organization? Every struggle for liberation is witness to such things like the murder of civilians, and those things should be condemned. But to say that only Hezbollah butchers civilians? Who isn’t butchering civilians over there? Doesn’t the Islamic State butcher civilians? If Daesh had won, what would have happened in Syria?”

On last Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised a decision by Persian Gulf Arab states to blacklist Hezbollah. According to Netanyahu the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s designation was an “important” and “even amazing” development. Last week, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates branded Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization.” Netanyahu said measures as such by the group “have great potential to change the diplomatic reality in the region.”

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