Treasonable Conduct….or Not?
By Sherwin Pomerantz

Yesterday, Israel’s Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, advised the Prime Minister that for lack of prosecutorial evidence he was abandoning his investigation of the activities of MK Hanin Zuabi and her participation in the Mavi Marmara Flotilla of May 2010 which was intended to break the blockade of Gaza.

Can you believe that?

A member of the Parliament of Israel representing the Arab Balad party chooses to sail on a ship as part of a flotilla whose aim is to oppose what even the UN said is a legitimate action on the part of the Israeli government and the Israeli Attorney General basically finds nothing unlawful about it. Zuabi, of course, denies that she knew anything about the fact that the ship on which she was a passenger had a significant cache of weapons and was ready for a serious confrontation with the Israel Defense Forces. You can see evidence of her participation and knowledge by going to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX8-zEO1TNU

When questioned after the event she said “Those who send the army to stop the flotilla should be brought before international tribunals (for trial).” As if that was not sufficient to question her commitment to the law she pledged to uphold when she was sworn in to the Knesset, hear what she had to say in November when she spoke at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Capetown. There she referred to the country in whose parliament she serves as the “Racist political and legal regime in Israel.”

Or some of her other comments at the time which included:

“It is part of the ideology of Israel to be racist”
“It is the policy of Israel to seclude and deport us” (referring to Palestinians)
“But actually I am saying that Israel is worse than an apartheid state.”

Given all of this it is certainly strange that our attorney general says he can find no grounds for further action. Really? Is this not treason? The dictionary says that treason is “a violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or one’s state.” Isn’t it obvious that participating in a flotilla designed to break the blockade of Gaza which is a policy of the government in which you serve treason? Doesn’t that constitute a violation of allegiance to one’s state? Can it be any clearer?

When questioned about all of this Zuabi regularly invokes her parliamentary immunity and states that in a democracy she has a right to state her opinions, even if they differ from those of the government.

Democracy is committed to the free expression of opinion even if that opinion is negative about the country in which one lives. But that is an entirely different situation than the breaking of the law by someone who is sworn to uphold it by dint of his or her participation in a country’s parliament. One cannot hide behind parliamentary immunity by invoking such immunity while being disloyal to the country in whose parliament he or she serves. That borders on treason and the attorney general should not have dropped the case regardless of the concern for the consequences in the Arab street. In the end, democracy and Israel will both pay the price of such legal negligence.