Friday, January 22, 2016

Evicting Jewish Settlers and the Arab MK Who Cried Foul

Israel can be a weird place sometime, at least for persons who think it's straightforward one:
Israeli troops forcibly removed Jewish settlers from homes they said they had purchased from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, prompting some right-wing Israeli lawmakers to threaten to withhold support for the government.
So far, not that weird. Maybe some folks would be surprised that this particular Israeli government would evict Jewish settlers in any case. But that's not the strange part. The strange part is who was among the objecting lawmaker:
Three right-wing lawmakers, two from Likud and another from the ultranationalist Jewish home party, said they would not attend parliamentary votes on Monday in protest at the move.
“It is forbidden to evict Jews from their homes and there will be consequences, we demand the prime minister’s involvement in the matter,” said Ayoub Kara, a Druze Arab Likud lawmaker.
 So ... that's not exactly the statement one expects to read from an Arab MK, even one on the Likud list (most Arab members of the Knesset are part of the Joint Arab List). But it just goes to show you that Israel is a much odder place than one gives it credit for.

(For my part, for what it's worth, good riddance to these Hebron settlers. But nobody asked me).

No comments: