Israel Katz: The Joint List is full of terrorists in suits
Ayman Odeh: The Likud Party are losers in ties
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANIsrael's Finance Minister Israel Katz(photo credit: SEBASTIAN SCHEINER/POOL VIA REUTERS)
Foreign Minister Israel Katz (Likud) lashed out at members of the Arab Joint List on Sunday, calling them “terrorists in suits.” The phrase was popularized by the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which has a report by the same name.“We heard [Blue and White leader] Benny Gantz talking about forming a minority government with the support of the members of the Joint List,” Katz said in an interview with the Hebrew press. “They went against the Arab League’s decision to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. They are terrorists in suits or supporters of terrorists in suits.”In response to Katz’s comments, Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh said, “The Likud are losers in ties.”But other Arab MKs and members of the Joint List did not take Katz’s comments in jest.MK Heba Yazbak (UAL-Balad) said Katz’s comment and similar ones by other members of Likud, including the prime minister, were “dangerous and unrestrained incitement against Arab elected officials.”“‘Terrorists in suits’ is a nice code name for, ‘We lost the elections and we do not know how to deal with it,’” she said.MK Yousef Jabareen appealed to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit to open an investigation against Katz for incitement.“This is crazy incitement against the Arab public, and it is particularly serious when it comes from the mouth of a senior government minister against other elected officials from a weakened minority group,” he said.However, Maurice Hirsch, head of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, told The Jerusalem Post while he “cannot say conclusively that members of the list are terrorists, what is clear is that the Joint Arab List’s party manifesto contains multiple statements and goals that support Palestinian terrorism.”For example, he said, the manifesto says: “The Joint Arab List aspires to free all the political prisoners.”“The term ‘political prisoners’ is a well-know euphemism for all of the imprisoned Palestinian terrorists, including mass murderers like Abdallah Barghouti, murderer of 67; and Abbas A-Sayed, the terrorist mastermind behind the Park Hotel massacre of 29 people,” Hirsch said.“The manifesto also promotes Israel giving away Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to the terrorism-supporting Palestinian Authority and the Golan Heights to [Syrian President] Bashar Assad and his chemical-weapons arsenal,” he said, referring to the part of the manifesto that reads: “The Joint Arab List will work to abolish the laws annexing Jerusalem and the Golan [Heights] and laws that contradict the rights of the Palestinian refugees,” among other sections.Most vocal in his support of terrorism is MK Ahmad Tibi, who has praised well-known terrorist Marwan Barghouti, Hirsch said.“Tibi even went as far as saying that Hamas firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population is not only ‘possible and allowed,’ but that it is ‘one of the rights of a nation under occupation in the same way that Hezbollah operated and triumphed in its resistance,’” he said.
