Joint Arab List MK Hanin Zoabi received approval to attend Columbia University panel, but failed to mention the name: “Israel, Racism and Apartheid” • “MK Zoabi has never filed a detailed itinerary, nor will she do so in the future,” her office says.
Gideon Allon and Israel Hayom Staff
Joint Arab List MK Hanin Zoabi obtained the Knesset’s approval to attend a recent anti-Israel conference in the United States by failing to provide the Knesset’s legal counsel with the full details of her trip.
According to a report by the Walla news website Monday, Zoabi asked the Knesset’s Ethics Committee secretariat for approval for an eight-day trip to the U.S., funded by the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Palestinian American Community Center.
According to Knesset bylaws, the Ethics Committee must approve any private overseas trip taken by MKs, especially if it is funded by foreign bodies. The committee, however, cannot rule on whether the funding body is anti-Israel or anti-Jewish, and its jurisdiction extends only to whether accepting an invitation would create a conflict of interest for the MK.
Because the new Knesset has yet to appoint its Ethics Committee, it was decided that until its formation, Knesset Legal Adviser Eyal Yinon will oversee MKs’ travel requests.
According to the report, while Zoabi provided Yinon with details about her trip and its backers, she failed to mention that she would be attending a conference at New York City’s Columbia University, titled “Israel, Racism and Apartheid — An Inside Look with Hanin Zoabi.”
According to a report on i24 News, during the conference, Zoabi lambasted Israel for “not only having racist laws, but laws pertaining to allegiance. According to Israeli law, if you ask for equality, it’s illegal. … This is a state conducted as a Zionist racist project, not as a state entity.”
An official at the Knesset Legal Adviser’s Office said that while MKs are not required to submit a full itinerary of their trips, it begs the question whether it is appropriate for MKs to attend events calling Israel an “apartheid state.”
He said that neither the Legal Adviser’s Office or the Ethics Committee can weigh in on the content of MKs’ trips, and their jurisdictions are limited to the funding aspects — private bodies versus public organizations — and to whether or not an MK’s absence befits the nature of the trip.
A statement from Zoabi’s office, quoted by Walla, said, “MK Hanin Zoabi has never filed a detailed itinerary [with the Ethics Committee], nor will she do so in the future, because she does not consider the committee a political censor.”
In the World of Islamists she would be raped and then burned alive.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2: On the other hand, since ISRAEL has chosen to be a democracy, just let her go where she wants and shoot herself and her so-called “people”, in their collective feet. She would be very happy to be denied a visa. If ISRAEL wished to do something which might impact the lives of Israelis put this energy into getting a death penalty for terrorists, in lieu of releasing them later.
The incompetent or intentionally ill intended jackass who OK’d the vermin’s trip must be terminated from the job and the zoabi finally expelled to Gaza or Syria.
Will that happen?
No way! The supreme garbage will no allow it.