Don’t Expel Ayman Odeh from the Knesset
Can anyone guarantee that down the line, a Knesset member expressing a position I do agree with won’t be similarly punished?
On Monday, the Knesset House Committee voted 14-2 to recommend that Ayman Odeh be impeached. The final decision about his expulsion will be left to the full Knesset – 90 out of 120 MKs would have to vote to expel. So far, some 66 members have committed to kicking him out.
Several members of the Opposition joined with the Netanyahu-led coalition to vote in favor of impeachment.
Odeh, 50, is from Haifa and chairs the Hadash Party, which stems from the now-defunct Jewish-Arab Communist Party of Israel. He is from a Muslim family but was educated at a Christian school and received a law degree in Europe. He and 10 other Arab MKs are full participants in the Israeli political system.
Months ago, Odeh tweeted his support for the release of Palestinian Arab terrorists when they were exchanged for Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza. He wrote that he was “happy for the release of the hostages and prisoners” and that “from here the sons of both peoples must be freed from the occupation. Because we were all born free.”
What irks many Israelis like me is that he equated the kidnapped victims with security prisoners, many of whom had engaged in violence, often against unarmed civilians.
More broadly, he has been vociferous and unfiltered in his criticism of the Netanyahu government and its war policies. He has called Netanyahu a “terrorist” and the government morally “weak.” He says he is not being extremist in battling what he describes as the government’s promotion of Jewish supremacy.
“My perspective as a Palestinian citizen of Israel is apparently different from the perspective of many Jewish citizens of Israel… While it’s evident that many of you tend to focus primarily on Jewish suffering, I see and grieve the suffering of both peoples. This is simply the reality – not just mine, but that of all Arabs living in this country.”
Odeh is philosophically opposed to Zionism – that is, he is against the existence of a national home for the Jewish people in any part of Israel/Palestine. In practice, he is a pragmatist and has plainly acclimated to the permanence of the Zionist enterprise. As an MK, he even swears pro forma allegiance to the State of Israel. Over time, Odeh has become ever more vitriolic and insensible in his attacks against the Netanyahu-led government.
The crux of the issue is whether there is a place in Israel’s Knesset for anti-Zionism?
My thinking is that there has to be a place for Ayman Odeh in the Knesset. In practice, he supports a two-state solution – albeit on terms I find fantastical – and he appears to genuinely back coexistence between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews within the pre-1949 armistice lines.
In some respects, his philosophical approach is little different from those of, say, the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party. Initially opposed to Zionism on religious grounds, it has adopted a non-Zionist pragmatic approach, enabling it to operate within the political system and participate in the government. The difference for me as an Israeli Jew is one of sensibilities: Odeh aligns openly with his fellow Arabs within the Green Line, in the West Bank, and Gaza – and we Israeli Jews are at war with some of his compatriots.
Those who led the opposition to Odeh know a thing or two about intolerance and fanaticism. Among the outside observers who appeared around the Knesset Committee table was Kahanist leader Baruch Marzel. Leading the charge against Odeh was the Likud Party, nowadays scarcely distinguishable from the hyper-nationalist Orthodox settler party of Bezalel Smotrich and the neo-Kahanist populist party of Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Israelis are not being irrational in asking why the Knesset should put up with an anti-Zionist Arab bloc that it sees as lobbying for the enemy from within. Frankly, on Day 635 of the October 7 War, which has claimed nearly 2,000 Israeli soldiers and civilians, I have little patience for Odeh or his kvetching. Hamas started this war. Many Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza reveled, at least initially, in the bloodletting. However, there is no evidence that Odeh – or any Arab Knesset member – joined in these celebrations.
For me, the essence of democracy has to be respect for minority rights. Odeh says things we don’t want to hear; however, we need to hear some of his pronouncements. Let’s not be obtuse. Odeh is to the Arab body politic what Smotrich is to elements of the Jewish body politic. He reflects what his constituents are thinking. The essence of civil liberties is the right of even wicked individuals to speak out against the government. Suppose we punish Odeh for expressing what is to me a detestable position that equates terrorists with hostages. How can anyone guarantee that down the line, a Knesset member expressing a position I agree with won’t be similarly punished?
I came to my Zionism from the political Right and the movement inspired by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. He was a classic European liberal who believed in tolerance. Alas, he died some 85 years ago, so who knows what he would say about Ayman Odeh? However, I would like to think that he would have stood by his argument that:
“Democracy means freedom. Even a government of majority rule can negate freedom; and where there are no guarantees for freedom of the individual, there can be no democracy. These contradictions will have to be prevented. The Jewish State will have to be such, ensuring that the minority will not be rendered defenseless.”
Jabotinsky also wrote:
“[Even] after the formation of a Jewish majority, a considerable Arab population will always remain in Palestine. If things fare badly for this group of inhabitants, then things will fare badly for the entire country. The political, economic and cultural welfare of the Arabs will thus always remain one of the main conditions for the well-being of the Land of Israel.”
I take the less lofty view as expressed by Lyndon Johnson. “It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
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