Israel‘s parliament has expelled a prominent left-wing Jewish MP over his support for South Africa‘s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
Ofer Kassif, the only Jewish MP for the left-wing Hadash party, will be suspended for six month after accusing Israel of committign war crimes in Gaza.
(November 10, 2024)
Protests calling against Netanyhau’s government and for the release of hostages were also held Saturday evening in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Haifa, Kfar Sava, Raanana Junction, Nes Ziona, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Rehovot, Karkur Junction, the southern Shaar HaNegev crossroad, Zikhron Yaacov and other localities. Five people were arrested in Jerusalem, Haifa and Karkur. At Haifa the police attacked again a protest vigil at Central Carmel, Activists from the Anti-Occupation Bloc, among them Hadash activists, demanded the end of the deadly war in Gaza and Lebanon and during the protest cops confiscated signs against the massacre in Gaza
The bill was attacked during the debate in the plenum by Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi, who retweeted a statement by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) arguing that its purpose was “to regulate the discourse in schools and to harm teachers whose statements and worldview do not coincide with those of the education minister and the political parties controlling the Education Ministry.”
“The purpose of the law is to threaten teachers and principals of Arab schools, to mark them and make them a target for surveillance and persecution,” the rights group stated, arguing that the tools already at its disposal before the current law were “adequate and sufficient.” “The law severely violates the rights to expression, employment and pedagogical autonomy of teachers and administrators,” it added. The teachers’ unions also opposed the bill.
Among the acts that would be construed as support for terror would be visiting the family of an attack suspect.
According to the proposal sponsored by Likud MK Ofir Katz, a candidate can be banned by the Central Election Committee without needing the final approval of the High Court of Justice, as is currently required. The proposed law is at base to ban Hadash and Arab parties from participating in the election, as well as weaken the Supreme Court’s power to overturn the decision. Furthermore, since left-wing and Arab voters do not belong to the right-wing camp, blocking participation of Hadash and Arab parties will also benefit the current far-right governing coalition electorally and increase its chances to win the next election.
A Knesset committee session on a controversial bill that proposes deporting relatives of terrorists erupted into a heated altercation, involving shouting and personal insults. The session escalated after MK Ofer Cassif opposed the bill, leading to a tense exchange with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who labeled Cassif a “terrorist.”
The bill would give authority to the interior minister, after holding an arraignment, to expel the family member “to the territory of the Gaza Strip, or a different expulsion destination, depending on the circumstances.” The expulsion would apply for seven to 15 years for an Israeli citizen and 10 to 20 years for a noncitizen. According to the bill, the Israel Police has “all of the authorities given to it by law, including the authority to enter any place, remove from it any person, and use reasonable force to do so.”
The debate before the vote was heated, as far-right MKs who supported the bill accused MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash), who opposed the bill, of being a “terrorism supporter.” At one point, Knesset ushers had to physically stand between Cassif and MK Almog Cohen (Otzma Yehudit) who brutally attacked the Communist lawmaker.
As Cassif entered the hearing, a woman told the Cassif that he should be “ashamed of his position,” and far-right lawmakers began shouting at Cassif, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calling him a “terrorist.” As Cassif addressed the committee, which he called a “gathering of fascists,” lawmakers screamed at him to leave and called on chairman Ofir Katz (Likud) to have him removed from the room. “Lucky you didn’t bring your pager,” one MK quipped, referring to the mass attack attributed to Israel that saw thousands of Hezbollah pagers explode on the men carrying them.”
Netanyahu’s coalition decided to ban Hadash and is still unclear which legislation will be used to ban Islamic Ra’am party. This is done under the false accusation of “support for terrorism”.
According to the political correspondent Daphna Liel of Channel 12 at the beginning of next the week, a bill by the chairman of the coalition, MK Ofir Katz (Likud), will be brought to the legislative committee to allow the disqualification of lists and Arab members of the Knesset.
The bottom line of the bill is proof of “mass manifestations of support for terrorism” will no longer be required and it will be possible to be satisfied in individual cases to disqualify a candidate and a list.
According to Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman: “32 years ago, when Israel killed Abbas Musawi, the co-founder of Hezbollah, the Israeli media announced that the ‘era of Hezbollah was over.’ The desire for revenge leads to blindness, and the intoxication of power makes one forget the lessons of history – as well as the captives and abductees in Gaza, and the war that has been going on for a year.” “The policy of assassinations not only violates international law, but also does not bring us closer to a real security or a stable solution and drags the entire region to the brink of an all-out war. Politicians, both in the coalition and in the opposition, continue to offer only one option: life on the sword and more revenge. The only solution is political and not a military one, the bloodshed must stop now,” she added.
(September 24, 2024)
“The same shocking images we saw at the beginning of the war in Gaza, the same horror, the same blind support. Innocent women, children and elderly people are crushed under the bombings. How much more blood will be spilled until they realize here that war will not bring any security?” she wrote.
Touma-Sliman added that “this war brings only destruction and crimes, not peace or security. Gaza is still suffering under the bombings, and the humanitarian crisis is worsening. There is no safe place, even the evacuees are bombed in their tents, exposed to hunger, disease, and rains. In the occupied West Bank, the settlers attack and lead terror day after day. Did all this bring back the hostages?”
(8 hours ago)
Amid police threats, hundreds attended Friday afternoon, Sept 20, the Partnership for Peace “Parade against war, for peace and life” alongside route 85 at the Western Galilee near the border with Lebanon, calling for a deal to end the war in Gaza, against a third war in Lebanon and occupation of the Palestinian territories, for a deal with Hamas for the return of hostages, as well as a lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians. Hadash and Communist Party of Israel leading members also participated in the anti-war demonstration close to Kfar Yasif.
The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and Hadash issued a common communique who said “The occupation’s attacks in the West Bank is a continuation of the campaign of destruction in Gaza.” They called for occupation forces to cease military operations in the West Bank.
According to Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, “The assault by the occupation forces on the West Bank has nothing to do with the security of Israel. It is just another layer in the total war that the Israeli government has been waging against the entire Palestinian people to annex their land and expel them from their homeland. Stop the war! End the occupation!”
MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash) called it the “Gazafication of all Palestinian land” and part of a plan to “ethnically cleanse the West Bank.
MK Cassif said to journalists, “In spite of the fascist menace and terrorization, we marched today, thousands of Jews and Arabs together, to protest against the criminal massacre in Gaza, the occupation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, against social injustice, class exploitation and fascism, and for the release of the hostages on the basis of ‘all-for-all’ principle, for social and national equality, democracy, and just peace.”
(27.04.2024)
Heavily armed police force raided Friday evening, April 26, the Hadash branch in Nazareth and arrested two activists who were setting up displays and flags for the May Day rally.
Activists from Hadash, the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and the Young Communist League were involved in the planning and preparations for the central May Day demonstration being organized by Hadash and the CPI who will be held, as every year, in Nazareth, today at 10:30, with a mass march along Tawfiq Zyad street in the center of the city.
(April 7, 2024)
The demonstration, held on the eve of the six-month mark of the war in Gaza, drew tens of thousands, with organizers claiming some 100,000 people were in attendance. Thousands more joined the call for early elections and a deal to secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza in smaller protests in other cities including Jerusalem, Haifa, Beer Sheva and Caesarea. Furthermore, there were demonstrations in over 50 additional locations across the country among them Kfar Sava, Karkur, Eilat, Kyriat Gar and Sha’ar Hanegev. The Israeli media define the demonstration as “the largest since October 7th.”
Racist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir appears to threaten Hadash MK Ayman Odeh with impeachment, tweeting out a picture of him with the message “next in line.” The photo shared by Ben Gvir shows Odeh holding the arm of Khalida Jarrar, a legislator and senior figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as she flashes a victory sign following her release from prison in September 2021. On last December 27, Jarrar was arrested again by occupation forces.
The far-right leader’s message comes hours after members of the Knesset House Committee overwhelmingly supported a motion to expel Hadash-Ta’al party lawmaker Ofer Cassif, voting 14-2 to advance his impeachment to the Knesset plenum following two days of contentious debate. During Tuesday’s debate on Cassif’s impeachment, Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi warned the Communist lawmaker’s ouster would “set a precedent” allowing for the impeachment of “all the Arab MKs in the Knesset.” “This is a black day for the Knesset,” Tibi declares following the vote.
30/01/2024
Today, the Knesset’s House Committee voted to expel Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, based on his public support for South Africa‘s application to the ICJ accusing Israel of genocide. Adalah: The motion is a deliberate attempt to suppress political dissent against Israel‘s brutal military campaign on Gaza
On Monday morning, the Knesset House Committee is slated to hear arguments in an unusual debate that will determine the political future of Communist lawmaker Ofer Cassif, from the Hadash-Ta’al parliamentary faction.
If the hearing goes badly for Cassif, he could soon face an unprecedented vote in the Knesset plenum to expel him from the legislative body, the result of his far-right MKs anger over his public support for a South African petition to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
Four years ago, lawmakers attempted to gather the required signatures to bring similar charges against Hadash leader MK Ayman Odeh, but the effort never made it to the committee stage.
(11.01.2024)
Israeli politician Ofer Cassif announced his support for the Gaza genocide lawsuit against Israel at the ICJ, and is now facing an attempt to get him kicked out of parliament. He explains why he did it.
Forer announced the move after Cassif signed a petition in support of the South African case against the Jewish state and claimed that members of the government were calling for ethnic cleansing and even genocide.
Eighty-seven MKs subsequently signed on to the initiative, passing the minimum threshold required for lawmakers to remove a colleague who expresses “support for an armed struggle by an enemy state, or a terrorist organization against the State of Israel.”
In der Küstenmetropole Tel Aviv verlangten die Teilnehmer einer Kundgebung das sofortige Ende des Gaza-Krieges, um die noch mehr als 100 Geiseln in der Gewalt von Hamas-Terroristen im Gazastreifen freizubekommen. „Stellt die Kämpfe ein, bezahlt den Preis!“, zitierten israelische Medien einen der Redner, dessen Cousin unter den Geiseln ist. (…)
In der nördlichen Hafenstadt Haifa verlangten am Samstag mehrere Hundert Anhänger der linksorientierten Chadasch-Partei den Rücktritt des Regierungschefs. Auch in Jerusalem gingen mehrere Hundert Menschen gegen die Netanyahu-Regierung auf die Straße.
MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash) is being threatened with expulsion from Israel’s parliament after he signed a petition supporting South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of acts of genocide. Cassif says the impeachment is based on an antidemocratic law that suppresses free speech. “They want me and my friends to shut up,” he says of the far-right government’s persecution of dissenting legislators in an interview to Amy Goodman broadcasted by Democracy Now! “We’ve been against the war from the beginning because we are against bloodshed.”
“Police’s silencing of Arab-Jewish Hadash front is an alarming phase in the erosion of Israeli democracy,” according today’s (Dec. 10) Haaretz editorial. “The attempt by the Israel Police to prevent a conference by the left-wing Arab and Jewish Hadash front scheduled for next Saturday in Shfaram shows that under the cover of the war, the ‘temporary’ violation of basic rights threatens to become permanent. Israeli Police are trying to prevent a Hadash national convention scheduled for Saturday, December 16, claiming that it would feature ‘inciting speeches that would endanger the public’s well-being.‘”
(08.12.2023)
According Hadash and CPI, “utterly reject the fascist intimidation acts by the Israeli establishment. We insist on raising our voice against the war and against fascism – courageously and responsibly. We will carry out the congress on the scheduled date. A decision about the location will be reached later. We call on all our activists to take part in our struggle against this persecution of our party and front for its political role.”
“We call on all our cadres, all the Jewish and Arab progressive forces, and the international anti-fascist forces to protest this McCarthyistic persecution, targeting all voices that stand out against this criminal war and against the deterioration of Israel into fascism. This process began before the war, but the government saw its eruption as an occasion to accelerate the attacks on the already diminished democratic space.”
(15.11.2023)
Touma-Sliman, who the committee said did not apologize and did not recant her statements, is barred from Knesset committee and plenum sessions for two months, and also receives a two-week pay deduction.
On October 19, the Ethics Committee of the Knesset suspended another Communist lawmaker, MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash), for what it deemed as “anti-Israel statements after the war in Gaza broke out.” Cassif has been suspended for 45 days.
(November 11, 2023)
We told the police that we are going to have this protest, that it’s going to be only leadership, that it’s not going to be a massive demonstration or something like this. The next day, when Barakeh was heading to Nazareth, they arrested him.
How do you interpret these crackdowns? Is this an attempt by the Israeli government to effectively criminalize expressions of Palestinian identity and solidarity?
Not only the Palestinian identity. I think that whatever they couldn’t pass through the judicial overhaul, they are passing now under the cover of the war.
„I have to condemn totally, with no reservation, of course, the terrible slaughter that Hamas carried out against innocent civilians in the south of Israel. There was no justification for such a massacre,“ Cassif, a Jewish member of the Arab-Jewish opposition coalition Hadash-Ta‘al, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
„Having been saying that, there‘s no justification for the carnage that Israel carries out at the moment. Because those who are harmed, assaulted and killed [are] mostly innocent civilians.“
“I have to condemn totally, with no reservation the terrible slaughter that Hamas carried out against innocent civilians in the south of Israel. There was no justification for such a massacre,” MK Ofer Cassif, (Hadash) told “As It Happens” host Nil Köksal broadcasted by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). “Having been saying that, there’s no justification for the carnage that Israel carries out at the moment. Because those who are harmed, assaulted and killed [are] mostly innocent civilians.” The following is an excerpt from his conversation with Köksal.
Last week, I was accused from the platform of Maariv, in the article “Let You Explain” written by Lilac Sigan, that I and my friends in my political path are responsible for the backing the abominable Hamas organization and its strengthening.
Strange, I thought, it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said, in his words, that “those who want to thwart a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas”, and it was Minister Bezalel Smotrich who referred to Hamas as a “political asset”.
For years, the right-wing governments avoided overthrowing the Hamas regime and even transferred funds to it in order to facilitate a favorable political situation for the deepening of the occupation in the West Bank, when the Israeli surrounding localities of Gaza were sacrificed on the altar of the settlements.
(Oct. 19, 2023)
In his declaration of war on Gaza on Oct. 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel quoted a line from a poem by the Jewish writer Chaim Nachman Bialik. “Revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan,” Mr. Netanyahu posted on social media.
Perhaps the prime minister forgot what Bialik wrote just one line before that: “And cursed be he who cries out: Revenge.” Or the next lines: “Let the blood fill the abyss!/let it pierce the blackest depths.”
These days I find myself asking what the poet meant by this. Bialik wrote it after learning of the horrors of the 1903 Kishinev pogrom.
(17.10.2023)
(16.10.2023)
Among the signatories to the declaration: Mothers Against Violence, Itach Ma’aki – Women Lawyers for Social Justice, Academy for Equality, Amnesty International Israel, BIMKOM – Planners for Planning Rights, B’Tselem, Gisha, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Parents Against Child Detention, Hamoked – Center for the Defence of the Individual, Zazim – Community Action, Haqel – In Defense of Human Rights, Yesh Din, Yesh Gvul, Combatants for Peace, Mehazkim, Machsom Watch, Women Wage Peace , Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Standing Together, Ir Amim, Emek Shaveh, The Parents Circle-Families Forum, Rabbis for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, Breaking the Silence and Torat Tzedek.
(03.08.2023)
Sponsored by a group of lawmakers led by MK Limor Son Har Melech, from the racist coalition faction Otzma Yehudit, and MK Yulia Malinovsky from right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beytenu, the new law marked a rare case of cross-Knesset alignment and passed 39 to 7 on its final reading.
Sharp criticism of the law quickly came in from Hadash-Ta’al lawmakers and Israel’s rape crisis center umbrella organization, with both alleging the law improperly creates a ranking of the severity of such crimes. Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Sliman, a former head of the Knesset’s Women’s Status Committee, told the Knesset: “Do not punish according to hierarchies and classifications.” “Shame on these laws,” she continued, tweeting after the law passed, “Don’t promote racism on the backs of victims!”
During the deliberations, a storm erupted in the Knesset plenum when MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash) stated in regard to the occupation forces operation in Jenin: “Every action has a reaction. There’s a reaction to the occupation, and that’s the resistance. Long live the Jenin Refugee Camp! Boo to you!” Odeh accused the far-right coalition MKs, saying: “Everyone’s blood for your accursed occupation, you are behaving not only as criminals but also as fools. Everyone is proud of Jenin and rightly so, and now more people will join the fighters against this accursed occupation. Every action has a response because it is the law of nature, the occupation has a response and this is the resistance, the resistance to the occupation is legitimate, long live the Jenin refugee camp, long live the Palestinian struggle.”
Odeh was immediately kicked off the podium after his support for Palestinians in Jenin and said, “Take me down, but the Palestinian people will continue to struggle.”
The results of the Channel 12 survey give the current 64-seat coalition just 54 seats, while the former government gets 61, with Hadash Ta’al taking the remaining five. The drop is more dramatic in the Channel 13 survey, which has the current coalition at 50 seats, the former government at 61, and six to Hadash-Ta’al.
(11.05.2023)
Hundreds, among them Hadash and Communist Party activists, gathered opposite the headquarters of the Israeli army in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening, May 10, 2023, to rally against the military escalation in Gaza. (Photo: Zo Haderech)
At the same time, MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash-Ta’al) decried at the Knesset plenum the “massacre in Gaza,” saying that it was aimed solely at “keeping the party of racist filth in the government” — a reference to Ben Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party.
(10. August 2014)
Wie erwähnt, erließ das Heimatfrontkommando das Verbot von Menschenansammlungen über 1000 Personen bereits am 18. Juli. Trotzdem demonstrierten am 26. Juli 5000 Menschen auf dem Tel Aviver Rabin Platz gegen den Gaza-Krieg. Doch ausgerechnet am gestrigen weltweiten Aktionstag, wo die Chance bestanden hätte sich mit zahlreichen Demonstrationen und Gegnern des Gaza-Krieges international zu solidarisieren und organisieren, kniffen Meretz und Hadash, die seit Jahren durch das gewisse Nichts glänzen, und sagten die Demonstration ab.
Nicht so radikale Aktivisten, Sozialisten, Dissidenten, Intellektuelle: sie kündigten an, trotz Verbots des Regimes zu demonstrieren. (1, 2, 3, 4)
Nachdem sich Boulevardreporter zunächst höhnisch über die ausbleibenden Linken geäußert hatten, versammelten sich diese, vorsichtig umher schauend, langsam auf dem Rabin Platz, viele von ihnen Senioren. Letztlich wurden es rund 500 Leute. Schnell tauchten die üblichen Regimetreuen, Faschisten und Zionisten als Contras auf, darunter Hooligans. Aus deren Parolen seien die oben in Aufnahmen dokumentierten Plakate zitiert (1, 2): “Eine Nation, ein Land, ein Führer”. Manch einer fragte sich, wo er das wohl schon mal gehört hatte.
(…)
Genau die Aufgeregten, Befleissigten und Empörten, die den Massenmord in Gaza decken und dabei im selben Atemzug nur noch “jüdisch”, “Israel”, “Linke-Linke-Linke” und “Antisemitismus” rufen, wollen mit linken Israelis überhaupt nichts zu tun haben. Stattdessen verstecken sie sich hinter Apologeten die sie angenehm an der Schamdrüse kitzeln, während sie gleichzeitig um diejenigen Israelis einen großen Bogen machen, die ihnen irgendwie die Mehrheitsfähigkeit und damit das Mitschwimmen auf der Welle in der vermeintliche Masse von Deutschland versauen könnten.
Im Hintergrund steht eine weitere Klientel, die durchaus von der obenstehend beschriebenen zu unterscheiden ist, ebenso von den einfachen Sadisten: die Klientel der Soziopathen, kaltschnäuzigen Zyniker und politischen Kampfdrohnen mit Roboterideal. Soll heißen: explizit der Berliner Regierung und ihren Angestellten und Höflingen, auch in der etablierten Presse.
Die von uns am 2. August prognostizierte Strategie einer Verwicklung Deutschlands in den Gaza-Krieg, wahrscheinlich an irgendeiner Spieltheorie-Schiessbude von Think Tank Schlagdichtot ausgeheckt, ist gegen die Wand gefahren. Und das mit Schwung.
Wer es noch nicht mitbekommen hat: laut der Infratest Dimap Umfrage für die ARD (“Deutschlandtrend”), erhoben am 4. und 5. August, sind 69 Prozent dafür sich aus dem “Gaza-Konflikt” heraus zu halten, sind also gegen die Entsendung von Bundeswehr, Bundespolizei oder irgendwelcher “Inspektoren” in die aufständische israelische Kolonie Gaza.
Wir haben zwar nur ein paar Tausend Leserinnen und Leser am Tag. Aber tausend, sagte man zu meiner Zeit, sind auch kein Pappenstil. *winke, winke*