Knesset panel votes 14-2 to allow expulsion hearing of MK who accused Israel of genocide

For Ofer Cassif to be expelled from office, a supermajority of 90 Knesset members will need to vote in favor of his ouster.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

In a vote Tuesday afternoon, members of the Knesset House Committee voted 14-2 in favor of a motion to expel Hadash-Ta’al party MK Ofer Cassif for signing a petition accusing Israel of genocide and inflammatory anti-Israel statements.

After two days of debate, the impeachment case will reach the Knesset plenum.

Ahmad Tibi, chairman of Hadash-Ta’al, the majority Arab party of which Cassif is the only Jewish representative, called the vote “a black day for the Knesset.”

The Labor Party denounced the vote to expel Cassif as “anti-democratic.”

The motion was brought by Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer who felt Cassif’s actions and remarks were “treasonous” and is employing an as-yet unused procedure stipulated in the 2016 Suspension Law that would allow members of the Knesset to expel peers if they were found to support “an armed struggle” against Israel or if they are proven to have incited racism.

Cassif wrote on X, “My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all its residents, not to a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide.”

After bringing the motion, Oded Forer said, “It would be my great privilege to boot the most despicable person the Knesset has ever known.”

Forer also said Cassif has “continued to make harsh comments during the war.”

Likud MK Moshe Saada said, “The man who compared Israel to Nazi rule is plotting a blood libel against the country and our moral and ethical duty is to show him the red card here.”

In a speech before the Knesset, Oded Forer said the motion was signed by 87 members of the Knesset, much more than the threshold requirement of 70 votes to allow the vote to go forward.

For Ofer Cassif to be expelled from office, a majority of 90 Knesset members will need to vote in favor of his ouster.