Arab Knesset member demands UN investigate ‘IDF terrorists’ defending Gaza border

“The occupation and the siege are not an act of self-defense, but rather one of terrorism,” lawmaker Hanin Zoabi of the Arab Joint List told a UN press conference.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Flatly denying the Palestinian violence at the Gaza border protests over the last two weeks, Member of Knesset Hanin Zoabi of the Arab Joint List faction has called for an investigation of the IDF over its defense of southern communities against Hamas’s “March of Return.”

At a press conference Friday at the United Nations in New York, Zoabi claimed that Israeli soldiers who fired on Palestinian protesters storming the Gaza border fence that day and since the previous Friday were acting unlawfully.

“Israel is not defending itself as it is claiming,” she charged. “The occupation and the siege are not an act of self-defense, but rather one of terrorism.”

She called for the international community to demand an investigation into the Israeli army’s behavior. According to Zoabi, the protesters’ throwing of Molotov cocktails and rocks as well as armed men attempting to breach the security fence under cover of the smoke from burning tires was merely “a march of peace” and a “popular resistance of women and children.”

“Israel has turned from a racist country to a fascist one,” she asserted, calling on “millions of Palestinians to march on Jerusalem.”

However, this could never happen, Zoabi added, “because the Israelis would kill them.”

Although tens of thousands of Palestinians have gathered at the Gazan fence since a week ago Friday, and despite the many attempts to injure IDF troops protecting the border communities as well as to infiltrate into Israeli territory, fewer than 40 Gazans have been killed, as non-lethal, riot-dispersals methods have been used as much as possible to contain the protests.

On Sunday, in reaction to Zoabi’s press conference, Likud MK Oren Hazan lodged a formal complaint against the Joint List lawmaker to the Knesset’s Ethics Committee. He demanded that Zoabi receive the maximum punishment possible for not only “ridiculing the Knesset, but also seriously harming the security of the state with her words.”

“Now it’s clear my accusations that (certain Arab MKs) support terrorism are true,” he declared.

Hazan also threatened to turn to the High Court of Justice if nothing is done about it, as he has complained several times to the Committee about her disloyal behavior.