The political assassination of Ayman Odeh

Casual Israel-watchers, understandably preoccupied by the ongoing horrors in Gaza or the fallout from the 12-day war with Iran, may be forgiven for having missed the news that the Knesset House Committee recently voted 14-2 in favour of the impeachment of the Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ayman Odeh.

His political fate will pass tomorrow to the full Knesset, where a vote of 90 of the 120 MKs will be enough to secure his ouster, with the smart money on such a super-majority being achieved.

It is but the latest conflagration in the coalition’s pyromaniacal crusade to destroy Israel’s attenuated democracy.

The justification was a January 2025 tweet from Odeh, following the then-latest agreement between Israel and Hamas, declaring that he was “happy for the release of the hostages and prisoners”.

At the time, Odeh’s words provoked a spate of horror and invective from that rather large portion of the Israeli political spectrum stretching from the far-right to the “liberal” centre. How dare he equate the release of innocent hostages with that of terrorists; to which Odeh replied, not unreasonably, that the releases on the Palestinian side included not only proven and unrepentant killers but also a considerable number of people, including minors, held under administrative detention without trial.