Democracy is not a suicide pact

Michael L.

The Times of Israel tells us:

The left-of-center Zionist Camp Knesset list on Thursday signed on to an initiative to disqualify the controversial Arab Israeli Knesset member Hanin Zoabi from running in the elections in March. Zoabi, of the Joint Arab List, has already been sanctioned over past comments that were deemed inflammatory, and a six-month ban against her participating in Knesset debates expired last Thursday.

In a statement, the Zionist Camp, which united the Labor Party and its leader, MK Isaac Herzog, with MK Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party, said that it would also seek to bar the far-right activist Baruch Marzel from running for parliament.

“The Zionist Camp today signed on to the petition by the Coalition Against Racism to disqualify the candidacy of Baruch Marzel with the Yachad list for Knesset,” the statement said. “The Zionist Camp also announces that it will support the disqualification of MK Hanin Zoabi. The candidates in question are extremists, from opposite ends of the political spectrum, whose [political] activity is suffused with incitement, racism and hatred, to the point where it threatens democracy.” 

“Is it strange that people living under occupation and living impossible lives, in a situation where Israel kidnaps new prisoners every day, is it strange that they kidnap? They are not terrorists,” she said in a radio interview after the abduction of the teens, before it became evident that they had been killed. She was also accused of inciting violence against Arab police officers during a demonstration in Nazareth.

Given the intense pressure that Israel is under, it is easily the single most liberal country on the entire planet.

Look at that woman.

Hanin Zoabi - the aunt of  pro-Israel / pro-Jewish Mohammad Zoabi - sits as a member of parliament in the country she would like to see dismantled.

Can you think of any other country in the entire world that has high level members of government openly in favor of the destruction of the state?

Would this be possible anywhere else?

Yet, in order to balance things out the Zionist Camp, a left-wing Israeli political party working with Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, is seeking to bar right-winger, Baruch Marzel, a Kahanist, from running for office.

I have to say, American politics is a tad different from Israeli politics and is just a smidge more narrow in scope... which is to say, just a little bit less democratic.  We do not have members of Congress or the Senate who actually call for the destruction of the state.