Jamal Zahalka to speak as part of Israel Apartheid Week.
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Jewish MKs blasted Balad Party chairman MK Jamal Zahalka Monday in advance of his first scheduled stop on an Israeli Apartheid Week speaking tour.Despite the near across-the-board criticism of Zahalka’s participation, Hadash Chairman MK Muhammad Barakei defended Zahalka’s actions and said he too received invitations and would have liked to participate.“I call on the Knesset Speaker and the Knesset Ethics Committee to consider an appropriate response to MKs such as Zahalka,” said MK Moshe Matalon (Israel Beiteinu). “It cannot be that an MK who earns his salary from Israeli taxpayers goes out and lectures against the country and its existence. This hater of Israel ought to earn his living from his audiences and from those who arrange his lectures around the world.”MK Danny Danon (Likud) echoed Matalon’s calls for an Ethics Committee probe into Zahalka’s conduct.While joining in the condemnation, MK Robert Tibayev (Kadima) pointed out that Zahalka’s controversial remarks and participation in international Israel Apartheid Week events in England, Canada and the United States actually contradicted Israel’s detractors.“There is no other state in the world where a member of the parliament goes out on a tour to lecture and incite against his country,” said Tibayev. “The fact that Zahalka does this is the best proof that Israel is truly a democracy of all of its citizens. It is a pity that Zahalka himself takes advantage of his status to incite against his country, but in doing so he proves the very strength of Israeli democracy.”“Israel Apartheid Week is very important because of Israel’s actions,such as building the security fence, maintaining settler-only roads andengaging in selective detention, among other things,” said Barakei.“When Israel feels the need, it sends representatives around the worldto preach its cause, but when it isn’t comfortable, it hides itselfaway within its borders.”Knesset officials were unaware Monday of any other MKs planning toparticipate in international Israel Apartheid Week activities, andZahalka was the only MK listed as a headliner in the week’s mainevents. Zahalka was set to begin his tour Monday night at a lecturesponsored by Oxford University’s Arab Cultural Society together withIsraeli professors Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim, and continue Tuesday atCambridge University.Later in the week Zahalka will cross the Atlantic and lecture in NewYork City and at Canada’s University of Ottawa and McGill University inMontreal.
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