MKs Hit Out at UAL-Hamas meeting
Excerpts;
Several MKs strongly criticized on Thursday the decision by United Arab List members to meet with a Hamas parliamentarian in east Jerusalem.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called the meeting an “official representation of terror in the Knesset.”
Livni went on to explain that Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed the revocation of Hamas PLC members’ Jerusalem residency because “the right to be in PA parliament does not include the right to be a member of a Palestinian terror organization.” Livni said that the Interior Ministry has the right to revoke the residency of whoever is deemed disloyal to Israel.
Likud MK Limor Livnat called for UAL MK Taleb a-Sanaato be expelled from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “Whoever meets two days after an atrocious act of murder with officials who do not recognize Israel’s existence cannot be a part of a committee which is entrusted with Israel’s security,” Livnat asserted.
Taleb a-Sanaa, who on Monday became the first Arab MK to be appointed to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said the visit he and MKs Ibrahim Sarsour and Abbas Zakour made to the east Jerusalem home of PLC member Muhammad Abu Teir served the national interest.
“We fulfilled our obligations to promote peace and end the cycle of violence cycle,” a-Sanaa said. “We deserve a medal of honor. We don’t think we should sit on the sidelines while people from both sides are losing their lives.”
But MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud), chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, called the visit “inappropriate.” “I think it is wrong that somebody that is not entirely committed to Israel’s security and to its military superiority should be a member of the committee,” Steinitz said.
NU-NRP chairman MK Zevulun Orlev said that the MKs who visited Abu Teir were “Trojan horses” in the Knesset and that “their immunity as MKs should be revoked and they should be brought to trial.”
Labor MK Ophir Paz-Pines also blasted the three, saying their act was “unforgivable.” “It would have been prudent if the MKs could have learned from [PA Chairman] Mahmoud Abbas, whose harsh response to the terror attack was stern and appropriate,” he said. He also called on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to convene to discuss the
“serious issue.”
Attorney General to Back Jerusalem Residency Revocation
Excerpts;
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz says he will back Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert’s decision to strip three Palestinian Authority legislators of their Jerusalem residency.
It was decided to strip residency rights from three members of the Hamas terrorist organization, including one who is a cabinet member and two PA parliament members.
The three met on Wednesday with their Israeli Arab counterparts who are members of the new Knesset, thus paving the way for their Jerusalem residency to be yanked.
Mazuz said such a move is possible only under extreme circumstances. In this case, it is justified, he said, because two conditions are present: all three are members of a group defined by Israel as a terrorist organization, and all are leaders of a political entity other than Israel.
As a result, said Mazuz, it will be possible to defend the move if the decision is petitioned in the High Court, which seems likely.
Commentary;
Foreign Minister Livni’s comments are of particular concern. On how many other issues of diminishing freedoms has the government of Israel set a precedent with the Arabs, later to be applied against Jews to a more abusive extent than application to Arabs, such as administrative detention, etc.?
And who makes the decisions as to who is “disloyal” to Israel and therefore deserving of revocation of residency? And is “disloyalty” subject to whatever is “politically correct” according to whomever is in control of the Interior Ministry, or according to Aharon Barak’s HCJ? Who decides questions of “disloyalty” to the State? The 12 families? Are we nearer to the spectre of National Religious or Chareidim being deemed “disloyal” due to adherence to Torah and to the ways of Hashem?
Or, will the architects of Oslo be deemed disloyal due to the fact that more Jews died of the resultant terrorist attacks and Islamikazi Bus bombings over the years of Oslo, the “Road Map”, etc. than at any previous time of the State of Israel’s contemporary history? MB