Member of Knesset (MK) Haneen Zoabi is under threat of having her Israeli citizenship revoked for taking part in the Freedom Flotilla in which nine activists were shot dead by Israeli soldiers. MK Zoabi has been the focus of a sustained attack on both her civil liberties and Parliamentary privileges since participating in the flotilla that attempted to break the illegal siege on Gaza.
In response to a request by Isreali Minister of Interior, MK Eli Yishai to the Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, Weinstein commented on Israeli radio that he would not make a decision to revoke her Israeli citizenship ”until the evidence is completed”, MK Zoabi released a statement saying:
I do not consider my own citizenship or the citizenship of others a privilege that may be withdrawn as a result of performing an act that is controversial from a public point of view. Moreover, by joining the Freedom Flotilla, I performed my civic duty to oppose the inhuman and illegal siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.
MK Zoabi has already been stripped – in an unprecedented Knesset vote - of some the parliamentary privileges afforded to her as a democratically elected MK. The privileges that have been revoked include the right to visit countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations, the right to a diplomatic passport, and the right to have the Israeli Knesset cover litigation fees if she faces trial.
Having already been called a traitor and physically attacked by other MKs whilst taking part in a debate at the Knesset, MK Zoabi was granted personal guards by the Knesset following fears of violence against her.
In a letter to the Attorney General, MK Zoabi says:
… your position stands to strengthen undemocratic and dangerous political and public trends, as reflected in various bills that relate to the citizenship of the Arab citizens as a conditional citizenship and a privilege, in violation of the basic rights to which they are entitled from the moment they are born.
I am gravely concerned at the fact that you are even willing to consider the request to revoke my citizenship. I therefore ask you to retract the aforementioned statement.
It is hard to see how the interests of Israeli democracy are served by the moves to revoke the citizenship of MK Zoabi.
Read the full text of Haneen Zoabi’s Press Release here.
UPDATE (21 August 2010): Correction of text referring to stripping of diplomatic privileges to say “the right to visit countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations”
