Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 31.01.2024
On January 30, 2024 the Knesset House Committee voted 14-2 to impeach Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif from the Zionist parliament (Knesset) for signing the petition of South Africa accusing Israel of genocide of the Palestinians. Even the IJC an imperialist institution had to admit that it is possible that Israel is committing a genocide.
The decision of the committee was condemned by Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ahmad Tibi, who called it “a black day for the Knesset,” and condemned by the Labor party that dismissed the entire process as “anti-democratic by nature.”
Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer who set out the process is the same person who set out in 2016 the legal mechanism for the Suspension Law, under which legislators may be impeached if they are found to have committed one of a number of infractions, including expressing support “for an armed struggle” against Israel.
So far, the Zionist lawmakers have gone through the first two steps of the process — submitting a letter signed by a minimum of 70 MKs and obtaining the support of at least three-quarters of the House Committee. Now a vote of 90 legislators is needed to suspend Cassif. In the first step 85 member of the Kensett voted for the impeachment in spite of Deputy Attorney General Avital Sompolinsky who told them that voting for the impeachment lacked a legal basis because Cassif’s actions in signing the petition failed to “meet the narrow and specific” criteria needed to establish that he supported Hamas.
“Sompolinsky and other speakers’ remarks were repeatedly interrupted by right-wing lawmakers like Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, who called her analysis a “shame and a disgrace,” and Likud MK Moshe Saada, who described Cassif’s remarks as a call for action not only in Israel but abroad” [1]
The hearing repeatedly descended into screaming matches between legislators, with Tibi being temporarily expelled from the room after yelling: “you called to destroy all of Gaza” at Saada — who brought up the destruction of the residents of the Strip in an interview earlier this month.“This is the regular ritual of supporters of terrorism in the Israeli Knesset: to support terrorism, glorify terrorists, legitimize harming IDF soldiers, and then when the sword is placed on their necks to say that they did not mean to, that they regretted it, and that they are peace activists,” argued committee chairman MK Ofir Katz (Likud). “This is not freedom of speech; it is the freedom to betray your country without paying for it” [2]
Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik attends a House committee meeting and said:
“I believe MK Cassif when he says he hates Hamas” [3]
Tibi said that Cassif’s ouster “will set a precedent” allowing for the possible impeachment of “all the Arab MKs in the Knesset. “I wonder who hurts the country more, Ofer Cassif or Benjamin Netanyahu,” he continued. “Imagine if Kasif had transferred not millions, but NIS 3,000 to Hamas — a criminal indictment would have been filed against him” [4]
While some members of Yesh Atid led by Lapid have supported the proceedings, others have come out against it, and on Tuesday morning, a party spokesman told The Times of Israel that the party’s MKs are free to vote as they see fit on the issue.
‘Cassif’s lawyer, Michael Sfard, and Cassif himself argued in response that the fact that Cassif opposed the war did not mean that he supported Hamas’s armed struggle, and to claim that the communist Hadash faction, supported the religious fundamentalist Hamas was absurd – and Sfard brought many quotes on Monday from after the war began on October 7, in which Cassif denounced Hamas’s attack, calling it “satanic” and condemning the “carnage”’ [5]
While the ISL is defending Cassif and opposes his impeachment even from the racist Knesset, because we defend the little remaining democratic rights in the apartheid state, that even they are under attack, we criticize the position of Hadash-Ta’al and of Cassif himself. Hamas is a national liberation movement fighting an imperialist settler colonialist state. Marxists side in such a war with the national liberation movement even when it is led by a petit bourgeois religious movement because the more dangerous side is the imperialist. At the same time, we do not support Hamas politically. The national liberation movement has the full right to use armed struggle. We also have exposed the Zionist lies of what happened on October 7th. Hamas has the right to kill soldiers and to capture Israelis who serve in the Zionist army (even in the reserve) and who live on the lands of the refugees living in Gaza. Israel is capturing Palestinians every day.
Cassif’s positions have nothing to do with Marxism and a lot to do with supporting Zionism. The masses are calling for free Palestine from the river to the sea while Hadash-Ta’al stands on the same wagon of Biden and of the PA calling for the no solution of a mini-Palestinian state a Bantustan on 20% of Palestine. A state that will serve the U.S and Israel against the Palestinian struggle for national liberation.
Pigs, hands off Cassif!
Victory for Hamas in the war!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-committee-votes-14-2-to-expel-mk-cassif-over-gaza-genocide-claims/
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-784343