Far-left Israeli lawmaker on trial for assaulting police officer

MK Ofer Cassif is charged with attacking a police officer during an altercation three years ago.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The trial of MK Ofer Cassif began on Monday, just over three years since he was filmed striking a policeman who was trying to enforce a closed military zone order.

The incident began in May 2022, when Cassif drove to support a left-wing demonstration against the demolition of illegally built Arab structures in the South Hebron Hills.

A video clip posted online clearly shows the MK first backing up his car, and then moving forward and deliberately bumping into officer Tzachi Azulay, who was standing in the road among several other Border Police and soldiers who were not letting anyone approach the area, which had been officially declared off-limits to prevent any rioting.

Immediately, the officer banged angrily on the hood and Cassif left the vehicle. As they stood face to face shouting at each other, the MK could be heard denying that he had touched Azulay.

The extreme leftist parliamentarian can be seen suddenly striking Azulay on the top of his head with his fist.

While the police requested to open an investigation against the MK soon after, Cassif was only interrogated for some five hours last August, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara only approved an indictment charging Cassif with aggravated assault of a police officer in January.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is in charge of the police and as a right-wing nationalist is a fierce foe of Cassif’s, attended the opening of the trial, stating at the entrance to the court that he had come to support Azulay.

“I will continue to support the heroic police officers, especially when it comes to the police officer who was attacked by the terrorist supporter Ofer Cassif,” he said, adding that he “hope[s] that the court will bring Cassif to justice and send him to prison.”

While saying he would reserve his defense for the trial, Cassif had claimed at the time that it was just the specific camera angle that made it seem that he had hit the officer, but that he had not done so.

In a post on X on Monday, he tried to turn the focus against the government, writing, “Today I come to court, not as a suspect in war crimes, not as a destroyer of the justice system, not as an abandoner of those kidnapped to agonizing death, but as an elected official who stands by his positions and his commitment to ending the occupation and achieving a just peace for the sake of both peoples.”

Cassif, who has represented the communist Hadash party in the Knesset since 2019 as its only Jewish MK, has been suspended a few times from the body for his anti-Israel statements and vilification of the IDF.

In February 2024, he narrowly averted a Knesset impeachment after he signed a petition in support of South Africa’s genocide accusation against Israel in the International Court of Justice in connection with the conduct of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Ninety MKs of the 120-strong body must agree to oust a sitting member, and only 85 supported the move, with 24 MKs absenting themselves from the session and 11 voting against it.