Israeli-Arab MKs vented their anger about the IDF, rather than facing reality and dealing with the real perpetrators of crimes and the Arab leaders who remain silent.
Member of Knesset (MK) Hanin Zoabi, of the Joint Arab List party, was booted off a radio program on Thursday after a stormy interview in which she equated the recent chemical attack by the Assad regime in Syria to IDF counter-terror operations in Gaza.
The heated exchange took place on Israel Radio after the show host asked Zoabi for her views on the world’s inaction in Syria.
Zoabi responded by asking the host if his “conscience and professional integrity only exists in a case when discussing children the IDF didn’t kill,” and proceeded to accuse the IDF of perpetrating war crimes in Gaza.
“Why didn’t you interview me when you slaughtered children and babies in Gaza?,” asked Zoabi. “[Assad] has been a criminal for five years since the start of the revolution in Syria, but there is another criminal – the Israeli army, and their place is in the International Court of Justice in Hague.”
Zoabi’s remarks sparked outrage from one of the show’s guest hosts, who said that he can no longer remain silent when Zoabi is lying and comparing the Israeli army, which is the most moral army in the world, with Assad’s army of murderers.
“Don’t you dare preach about morality,” retorted a livid Zoabi, “I don’t want to hear you.”
Zoabi was soon kicked off the program after shouting at the hosts to “shut up.”
Zoabi’s remarks came a day after Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh drew sharp condemnation for drawing a parallel between the situation of the murdered children in Syria and the children in Gaza.
“My heart aches for the children murdered in Syria in the same way that it feels shame for the children murdered in Yemen and in Gaza too,” Odeh said on Wednesday from the Knesset plenum.
Responding to the remarks of the Israeli-Arab MKs, Matan Peleg, CEO of the Im Tirzu Zionist student organization, said “the radical remarks of Joint List MKs Zoabi and Odeh against the State of Israel and IDF soldiers prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is a party that seeks to damage the relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel.”
“These MKs are fueled by hatred and extremism and have no interest in serving the needs of the Arab sector, and this has always been the case,” he stated.
Where are the Arab Leaders?
Israeli-Arab newscaster Lucy Aharish issued an impassioned rebuke on Wednesday of regional heads of state over their failure to halt the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria.
“The images that once again struck us yesterday are not fake news, but rather old news, ” Aharish said in English on Channel 2. “There is one question that repeats itself — where is the Arab leadership? Where are you, traitors? Have you forgotten your own people?” she asked rhetorically.
In December, Aharish aired an English statement in which she called the situation in Aleppo a “holocaust.”
“I am ashamed as a human being that we chose leaders who are incapable of being articulate in their condemnation and powerful in their action,” she said at the time. “I am ashamed that the Arab world is being taken hostage by terrorists and murderers and that we are not doing anything. I am ashamed that the peaceful majority of humanity is irrelevant once again.”
