EDM 695: Attempted removal of Ayman Odeh from the Israeli Knesset

That this House expresses deep concern regarding the efforts of Israeli coalition and opposition politicians to oust MK Ayman Odeh from the Knesset; joins Odeh in welcoming the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal which enabled the exchange of Israeli and Palestinian hostages and abductees; supports the sentiment of Palestinians and Israelis being freed from the burden of occupation and building a shared future; notes that, of the 90 Palestinians hostages most recently released by Israel, 69 were women, 21 were children, and most had been held without charge or trial; acknowledges the existence of myriad political mechanisms that enable the targeting, exclusion, and marginalisation of Palestinian-Israeli members of the Knesset, including the conflation of one’s support for Palestinian rights with support for terrorism or incitement to violence; further notes the similar employment of the impeachment process against MK Ofer Cassif, as a result of his signing a petition in support of the South Africa’s case forwarded in the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza; believes in the value of maintaining a representative democracy that encompasses a broad array of political, social, and ethnic creeds; and calls on the Government to vehemently oppose any efforts by Israeli parliamentarians to further solidify an ethnocratic, apartheid state, and deny the Palestinian population’s right to self-determination through the rooting out of democratically elected officials that represent their cause.