Balad disavows Joint List statement condemning Beersheba attack

The main issue for Balad was the wording of the statement, which was issued without the party’s approval.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
Blood at the scene where terrorist was shot at the Beersheba central bus station on October 18, 2015 (photo credit: ISRAEL POLICE)
Blood at the scene where terrorist was shot at the Beersheba central bus station on October 18, 2015
(photo credit: ISRAEL POLICE)
The Israeli Arab nationalist Balad party voiced its disagreement on Tuesday with a Joint List statement issued a day earlier that condemned this week’s Beersheba terrorist attack.
The main issue for Balad was the wording of the statement, which was issued without the party’s approval.
“Everyone agrees that press releases go out only with the consent of all its components,” a source from Balad told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.
“Our absence yesterday [Monday] was taken advantage of to get the condemnation message out. We object to the content of the message,” the source said.
The Joint List statement said, “The Joint List expresses fierce opposition and condemnation of the shooting and killings that took place at the central bus station in Beersheba.
“The struggle of the Arab community in Israel is a political, popular and parliamentary struggle, not a violent one,” it continued.
The only way to break the cycle of violence is by “ending the occupation,” it said, adding that it warned against “a wave of incitement and intimidation against the Arab population.”
Joint List head Ayman Odeh (Hadash) issued a separate statement that also condemned the attack.
The office of Balad MK Haneen Zoabi sent the Post her own statement on Tuesday: “The responsibility for the individual acts of violence is related to the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinian people.
“You cannot talk about an equality of both sides when one people is free and the other is occupied.”
Zoabi emphasized that the two-state solution is not the solution, but rather “one binational state for all its citizens.
“Moreover, we believe that the Palestinian people have the right to struggle within the limits of international law. We are not calling for violence,” she said.


Related Tags
Abe Foxman