Chairman of the centrist Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid announced Sunday that he backs a measure to oust Joint Arab List MK Hanin Zoabi from the Knesset.
Speaking to the Kan Bet radio station, Lapid explained his decision to back the initiative, submitted by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu, saying that "no parliament in the world would let a supporter of terrorism serve in it."
"Balad [one of the parties that makes up the Joint Arab List, and which Zoabi represents] should be disqualified [from the Knesset] because it supports terrorism, and Hanin Zoabi shouldn't be in the Knesset, because she mainly represents Hamas," Lapid said.
Zoabi is well known as a provocateur. She has taken part in numerous flotillas seeking to breach the Israeli blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza and has been involved in many protests that devolved into violent clashes between Israeli Arab demonstrators and Israeli security forces.
In 2014, the Knesset voted to suspend Zoabi from all Knesset activity for six months over her repeated anti-Israel remarks. Among other things, Zoabi has publicly compared the Israeli government to Nazis, called IDF soldiers "murderers," and refused to attend a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, calling Israel's teaching of the Holocaust "selective and manipulative."
Zoabi has also issued a call for an Islamist uprising against Israel on the Hamas website.
However, unlike his party's leader, Yesh Atid faction chairman Ofer Shelah has taken a firm stance against stripping Zoabi of her Knesset seat.
"Anyone who, facing political threats, embarks on a campaign to remove Zoabi from the Knesset is actually doing her a favor, one she does not deserve," Shelah said. "Instead of letting her disappear from the radar, the way she should, it would help cast her as a victim and a fighter for democracy."
MK Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu) has informed the chairman of the Knesset House Committee, Miki Zohar (Likud), that he has begun collecting the signatures necessary to have the committee revoke Zoabi's membership in the Knesset.
Shelah said in response to this development that "Zoabi shouldn't be rewarded like this."
