Cork - Event Notice
Thursday January 01 1970

[Cork] Israel: Democracy, Racism & Apartheid – An Insider’s View with Haneen Zoabi MK

cork | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice

Thursday July 26, 2012 14:58

by Kev - IPSC

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) is proud to invite you to a public talk by Haneen Zoabi MK, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Parliament on Friday 10th August in the Metropole Hotel, McCurtain Street, Cork City at 8pm.

This is a rare opportunity to find out directly from a public representative in the Israeli parliament how the self proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East” truly functions. It promises to be an informative and eye-opening experience, and will afford those in attendance the opportunity to learn about issues relating to both the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the continuing erosion of democratic freedoms inside Israel, including the crackdown on the work of domestic and international NGOs.

Information about Haneen Zoabi

Haneen Zoabi MK, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who rose to international prominence following the Israeli attack on the 2010 Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, is a feminist, educationalist and parliamentarian. Elected to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, as a BALAD party representative in 2009, she is the first Palestinian woman in Israel to represent an Arab-Palestinian political party in Israel and has become one of the state’s most outspoken and eloquent critics, and thus, one the most controversial and hated politicians in the Knesset. Ms Zoabi will be on a speaking tour of Ireland from Monday 6th to Friday 10th August, hosted by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Ms Zoabi, who was on board the Mavi Marmara ship when it was stormed by Israeli commandos, condemned the raid in Israel’s parliament as “a pirate military operation”. Her involvement led to her being portrayed as a hate figure by the Israeli right. Ms. Zoabi was called “traitor” and “terrorist” by her fellow parliamentarians, suffered an attempted by physical assault by one of her Knesset colleagues, received death threats, and demands from the Israeli Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, that her parliamentary immunity and Israeli citizenship be revoked. As a result the Knesset has since removed a number of Ms Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges, including the right to participate in discussions and to vote in parliamentary committees. In another incident she was shot in the back and neck with rubber bullets by Israeli police during a demonstration against right-wing Jewish extremists in northern Israel in 2010.

With a background in education and media, Ms Zoabi campaigns for equal rights for all Israel’s citizens and for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. She believes that the Israeli state ideology of Zionism is inherently racist and points to over 30 Israeli laws that legally discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Describing her quest for equality she has said, “The problem is not simply the terms of citizenship: we want to be equal to the Jews, but also, as the indigenous people, this homeland belongs to us. I want to be equal not because I immigrated or because I’m a citizen. Primarily I want to be equal because it is my homeland and nobody has the right to take it away.” At the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in South Africa she testified that Israel was an a state of “apartheid discrimination” and that “we the [Palestinian] citizens are a strategic threat because we reveal more than Palestinians in the Occupied Territories the contradiction behind the Jewish state and democracy”.

Ms Zoabi has been at the forefront in opposing the introduction of loyalty oaths for Israel’s non-Jewish minorities, Admission Committees and other anti-democratic legislation, condemning leading Israeli politicians, including the prime minister, as “all a bunch of fascists pure and simple.” Of the current legislative assault on Israel’s already-limited democracy she remarks that it is “a gradual continuation of long-standing policies that confiscated my land; that discriminate against me; and that refuse to recognize me as an equal citizen and as one of the owners of this homeland.”

Ms Zoabi additionally brings a much needed feminist perspective to the struggle for equality and civil rights, calling for Israeli feminists to join with Palestinian advocates: “We can’t call ourselves feminists if we occupy other women, demolish their homes, force them to live under a blockade, support settlement expansion, and then come home and talk about women’s rights.”

Despite ongoing harassment and threats Haneen remains undaunted; referring back to those she is elected to represent, she has remarked, “I was not elected to keep silent or to sit at the table and clap”.

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Comments (8 of 8)

Israel invites George Galloway

by Alon F

Tue Aug 07, 2012 23:01

In a reciprocal gesture, I hear that Israel's Scottish Nationalist support group has invited George Galloway to speak next week in order to get a true impression of life in the UK. George has been fighting for human rights for years, is a member of the UK Parliament, and will be sure to give an objective opinion, after which Israelis will have a accurate and mainstream picture of life in the UK.

He will point out that despite being being a Scotsman, and a member of Parliament in London with freedom of speech and religion, freedom to condemn in public the sitting government, having actively supported attacks on British troops, and given moral support to the UK's arch enemies in a time of war against them but nevertheless retained his Parliamentary seat, - despite all this the UK is still an apartheid state which restricts his freedoms and that of all other Scotsmen and women.

George rocks!

by GGfan

Wed Aug 08, 2012 09:54

The establishment have done their damnedest to shut george galloway up. Including a kangaroo senate committee which backfired sensationally.

Galloway was elected in spite of the system not because of it and he was elected by the people on the ground.

Lets relive a few of his good moments sticking it to the establishment/media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249JaIaubVw

Caption: Video Id: 249JaIaubVw Type: Youtube Video
George kicks sky news ass about Israeli attack on lebanon

Caption: Video Id: qnflzhtDkJM Type: Youtube Video
George reverses US senate committee hatchet job. part1 (see rest on youtube)

Hanin Zoabi

by Mary

Wed Aug 08, 2012 11:12

MK Danny Danon (Likud) on Wednesday blamed Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) for a terror plot recently foiled by the Shin Bett that saw Israeli Arabs smuggle 20 kilograms of high grade explosives into Israel.
"MK Zoabi is complicit in the phenomenon of terrorism among Israeli Arabs," he said. "We must open a parliamentary investigative committee that will examine the connection between Arab MKs and Arab-Israeli terrorism."
Danon added: "Zoabi is a fifth column who is working acting as an anti-Israel terror cell from within the Israeli Knesset."
Zoabi has been a vocal critic of Israeli police vis a vis Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, and participated in the May 2010 Gaza protest flotilla on board the Mavi Marmara.

Hardly Apartheid

by Damien M - PW

Wed Aug 08, 2012 20:51

Can't be that much of an apartheid state, if Arabs living there are allowed to vote, and even elect an elected representative to represent said Arabs
I don't think Christians or Jews would be given much airtime in Hamas controlled territory, much less a vote.

Damien

by Elric

Thu Aug 09, 2012 01:03

In the Occupied Territories still controlled by Israel, Jews have a vote in the Knesset elections but Mulims and Christians don't.

Get your facts right.

by Contrarian

Thu Aug 09, 2012 10:56

In the Occupied Territories still controlled by Israel, Jews have a vote in the Knesset elections but Mulims and Christians don't.

Completely wrong. The electoral franchise in Israel is not based on religion, its based on citizenship. If you're a citizen of Israel, you get a vote. If you're not, you don't. (This applies whether you reside in Israel proper or in the administered territories.)

Quite similar to the electoral laws in most other democracies, you'll find.

Outdoor prison

by PLO

Thu Aug 09, 2012 11:06

Gaza is an outdoor prison being squeezed out of existence. Plain and simple.
Stop trying to defend the indefensible Contrarian.

Borders are totally controlled by Israel, they can't run businesses or trade properly and the list of restricted items is taking the piss completely.

The plan is a slow relentless ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza. Look at any map over the years and the slow but relentless usurping of palestinian land is plain to see.

Fact Check

by Fuck Zionism and All Racist Zionists

Thu Aug 09, 2012 12:04

"Completely wrong. The electoral franchise in Israel is not based on religion, its based on citizenship. If you're a citizen of Israel, you get a vote. If you're not, you don't. (This applies whether you reside in Israel proper or in the administered territories.)

These so-called 'citizens of Israel' are living on stolen land outside of Israel's political borders

They were not invited there

They are not welcome there

They have absolutely NO legal or moral RIGHT to be there

For the most part they have not bought the land or houses that they live in - most of that land they stole,and as for the housing they either stole that too or stole the land it sits on and then illegally (according to ALL relevant International Law, and many Israeli domestic laws as well) built-on

What you call 'Israeli Administered Territories' is in fact land belonging to others that the racist Israelis are stealing bit-by-bit every day

By every applicable International Law, and many Israeli domestic laws as well, the 'Israeli Citizens' you refer too are illegal squatters, nothing more than racist bigoted bullying hate-filled Nazi-like robbers and murderers

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[Cork] Israel: Democracy, Racism & Apartheid – An Insider’s View with Haneen Zoabi MK

Comments (8 of 8)