Israel has no right to suspend lawmakers: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Richard Silverstein, a journalist and political commentator in Seattle, to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to disqualify Knesset members who met with families of slain Palestinians.

Press TV: It is interesting to know how Netanyahu is categorizing these Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli forces as Daesh (ISIL) terrorists. What do you make of that?

 Silverstein: Only a third of those 170 Palestinians who have been killed had nothing to do with any militant activity, they were actually murdered by Israeli security forces, so only two-thirds of them were involved in attacks on Israelis.

But I want to talk about the visit by the Israeli Knesset members to the Palestinian families. There are Palestinian families whose relatives were killed by Israeli security forces. It does not matter how they died, their bodies deserved to be repatriated to their families. Israel is holding those bodies [as] ransom, because Israel does not want the families to have funerals that display nationalist sympathies of Palestinians for whatever movements individuals are associated with.

It is reprehensible that Israel holds these bodies ransom, it is a violation of Jewish law and Islamic law to not be able to bury the dead no matter what they have done, [and] what crimes they may have committed and the punishment of the Knesset members for representing their constituency and asking Israelis to return these bodies is absolutely shameful and I am hoping that this decision will be overturned.

If it is not, I believe personally that the entire Palestinian delegate in the Knesset should itself withdraw from the Knesset in protest. That would force Netanyahu to have to choose whether he wants to have a fig leaf of democracy in the Knesset or whether he wants to admit that Israel is an apartheid state.

Press TV: Right, now speaking of the democracy in the Knesset or the perception of that at least, Netanyahu has vowed to advance a piece of legislation that enables the Knesset to disqualify the members over what has been described inappropriate behavior. Now, let’s not forget that these are members that have been voted in the by the public.

Does Netanyahu have the right to remove them or declare them inappropriate?

Silverstein: No he does not. If Israel wants to be called a democracy it must have representation for all citizens. Twenty percent of Israelis are Palestinian; they must be represented in the Knesset if Israel is to be a democracy.

If Israel wants to go down the road of disqualifying all Palestinians or the Palestinians that it considers the most reprehensible, then it can no longer be called a democracy and in my opinion Israel is not a democracy right now.

This decision and legislation if it is passed will go farther along that road and it will deny the international community the right to consider Israel a democracy and it will further erode whatever small whatever small level of support remains in the international community for Israel.

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