Arab MK Ahmad Tibi: ‘We’ll oppose anyone who supports Trump’s plan’

‘We will do everything in order to oppose anyone who supports and advances this plan,’ he said.

By David Isaac, World Israel News 

Arab Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, one of the leaders of the Joint List, said that his faction would work against the adoption of President Donald Trump’s peace plan by Israel’s parliament in an interview with i24NEWS and Israel Hayom on Sunday.

“We will do everything in order to oppose anyone who supports and advances this plan,” he said.

He said that in light of the public support of Benny Gantz for the plan, his party will not recommend the Blue and White leader for the premiership following the next election. The Joint List had recommended Gantz after the last elections in September.

“We’re listening to the silence of Benny Gantz regarding the section in the Trump plan about the transfer of 300,000 Arabs [to the Palestinian Authority] and the removal of their citizenship. Gantz hasn’t said anything and there will be a price for such political stands,” Tibi said.

According to the Trump plan, 10 Arab cities in an area bordering the Palestinian Authority (PA) known as The Triangle will be transferred to the PA’s control.

Critics have accused the Arabs living in those areas of wanting their cake and eating it, too, as they identify as Palestinian even though they live in Israel. This split loyalty was recently on display during a protest against the plan in the area, which featured Arabs demonstrating against their transfer to the PA even as they waved Palestinian flags.

Tibi said Netanyahu’s efforts to annex territories in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley will fail.

“He won’t do it because he’s facing court on bribery charges. The era of Netanyahu is over,” he said.

Tibi gave a similar prognosis for Trump’s plan as a whole.

“These plans were also in the past, and they disappeared. This plan will also disappear. Like the Reagan plan, like plans that divided the state that didn’t touch on the nature of the conflict – the end of the occupation and the two-state solution,” he said.

Tibi, like many Arab MKs, has a controversial past. In 2002, MK Michael Kleiner attempted to restrict Tibi’s movements inside the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria, saying he was assisting the Palestinians in their war against Israel.

Most recently, one of Tibi’s colleagues, Arab MK Heba Yazbak, was banned by Israel’s Central Elections Committee for writing posts in support of terrorists. Israel’s Supreme Court voted on Sunday to overturn the ban.

Tibi said in the interview that she had learned her lesson and wouldn’t write such posts in the future.

Ahmad TibiBenny GantzDonald Trump