Knesset set to impeach Arab politician over tweet about hostages

The Knesset is poised to impeach leading Arab politician Ayman Odeh on Monday, a move that would further marginalise the Arab minority, which is already plagued by inferior legal status.

But the veteran left-wing Hadash party leader, known best for his espousal of a two-state peace compromise and calls for Jewish-Arab cooperation, is thriving on the confrontation, which is seen as having broad implications for the future degree of pluralism in increasingly extremist Israeli politics.

Odeh told The Jewish Independent that he sees these days as a moment of opportunity.

“I want this crisis to lead to a strengthening and broadening of Arab-Jewish partnership for equality in the homeland and respecting the national rights of the two peoples,” Odeh said in an interview on Tuesday, a week after the Knesset’s House Committee voted 14 to 2 to recommend that he be expelled from parliament over a social media post deemed to support terrorism.

Unless there is a change of heart by centrist opposition party Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who backs Odeh’s ouster, it is likely that the required 90 out of 120 MKs will expel Odeh. If that happens, he plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, which itself has been moving rightward.

Odeh, who ironically has been under fire within Hadash for opposing greater radicalism, said he has been buoyed by thousands of messages of support from Jews, including from artists and filmmakers, leading writers, and street protest activists. The latter are reportedly warning centrist politicians who joined the Likud party expulsion initiative that they will no longer be welcome at their demonstrations.

Taking a leaf from the book of the late left-wing Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Odeh says that the occupation is fuelling a “fascistisation” of Israel that is spreading through all parts of the state. His impeachment, he believes, is part of this.