National Union MK Ben-Ari takes advantage of parliamentary immunity and enters city to protest Balad, MK Zoabi.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Member of Knesset Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) on Sunday defied a police ban on a protest in Nazareth that he organized, and entered the Arab city of 80,000 residents on his own for a short time.Ben-Ari and his supporters had originally planned on entering the city and staging a protest outside the home of MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad), who recently released a series of radical anti- Israel statements.But Police Commissioner Insp.- Gen. Yochanan Danino canceled the permit given to the protest, due to the assessment that the security situation in the South had rendered such an event too likely to end in rioting.Ben-Ari took advantage of his parliamentary immunity in order to enter the city briefly, walking down a street with an Israeli flag accompanied by police. He was met by dozens of protesters from the Balad political party waving Palestinian flags, who were kept back by police.Ben-Ari’s supporters waited outside of Nazareth.Ben-Ari later described the police’s decision as a “disgrace,” telling Maariv that “the state has surrendered to Arabs in Gaza and now it is surrendering to Arabs in Nazareth.”He vowed to return and hold a protest in the city.Zoabi joined the protesters, and said she was pleased that “they didn’t let fascism enter the city.”