The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously stated that “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” In Israel’s Knesset, that equation is reversed: parliamentary work has become the continuation of war by other means.

On Monday, the Knesset House Committee voted to impeach Palestinian parliamentarian Ayman Odeh, head of the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al list. His crime? In January, as the two-month Gaza ceasefire came into effect, Odeh tweeted: “I am happy about the release of the [Israeli] hostages and [Palestinian] prisoners. From here, both peoples must be freed from the yoke of the occupation. We were all born free.” 

As I watched the committee’s hearing, I felt like my eyes were bleeding. It was physically unbearable. Knesset members from across the political spectrum — who aren’t worthy of the dust on Odeh’s shoes when it comes to humanism, morality, and democratic integrity — competed to see who could spew the vilest rhetoric against him.

No one paid attention to the Knesset’s legal adviser — who, after the obligatory lip service condemning Odeh’s “disgusting statements,” concluded that there was no legal basis for his impeachment. And it goes without saying that no one listened to Odeh’s attorney, Dr. Hassan Jabareen, who explained why the proposal was procedurally flawed, legally unsound, and morally bankrupt.

From the first sentence to the last, the hearing was a farce. It ended with a vote of 14-2 in favor of the proposal, supported by all Jewish members of the committee — including those from opposition parties — and opposed only by two lone Palestinian MKs. The hearing was closed by committee chair Ofir Katz, of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, who called Odeh a “routine supporter of terror” and declared that he “should rot in prison.” The proposal will now pass to a vote of the whole Knesset, requiring a supermajority of 90 MKs out of 120 to finalize Odeh’s expulsion.

The intended function of the “Impeachment Law,” which passed in 2016, was clear from the outset: giving Jewish lawmakers the power to expel Arab lawmakers.

Under the law, the only reason a sitting MK can be impeached is if their actions constitute “incitement to racism” or “support for armed struggle against the State of Israel.” In other words, lawmakers who are thieves, rapists, pimps, witness tamperers or just plain corrupt, have nothing to worry about. Nor do those who call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank or the genocide of those in Gaza; certainly, that cannot be considered “incitement to violence.” 

Rather than protecting minority rights from the tyranny of the majority, an expanded panel of Israel’s High Court unanimously rejected petitions against the law in 2018, opting to empower Jewish parliamentarians — famously wise, fair, and judicious when it comes to their Arab counterparts — to remove those elected to represent over 20 percent of the country’s population.

The Supreme Court’s naïveté during that hearing was nothing short of dizzying. Then-Chief Justice Esther Hayut acknowledged that the law does significantly infringe on fundamental rights, but insisted it contains a system of checks and balances, and that “it cannot be said that it negates the democratic core of the state or shakes the foundations of the constitutional structure.”

Negates the democratic core of Israel? God forbid. On the contrary, nothing captures the essence of Israel’s vaunted “democracy” more precisely than this law. And what were the “checks and balances” that comforted the chief justice? That of the 70 MKs who initiate an impeachment motion, at least 10 must be from the opposition. 

That is, of course, a real ironclad safety net when it comes to Israeli politics. After all, Israel’s Jewish opposition lawmakers — from Avigdor “chop their heads off” Liberman, to Yair “I hate the Zoabis” Lapid, to Benny “I sent Gaza back to the Stone Age” Gantz — are well known for their deep commitment to the civil rights of Israel’s Palestinian minority.

After years in which the High Court repeatedly overturned the Election Committee’s decisions to disqualify Palestinian candidates from running for office, it now seems the court has decided its intervention is no longer necessary — that Jewish Knesset members can be trusted to make “measured and responsible” decisions about their Arab colleagues all on their own. What a blessing, to have such an optimistic and trusting High Court.

The dreaded Arab vote

There have been two prior attempts to impeach a sitting Knesset member under the law passed nine years ago. The first was against Basel Ghattas, after the scandal involving the smuggling of phones to Palestinian prisoners — a case rendered moot when Ghattas chose to resign to avoid setting a legal precedent. The second attempt, against Ofer Cassif (a Jewish member of Odeh’s party), failed last year due to a lack of support from the required 90 MKs. 

All of this raises the question: Why the current attempt to use it against Odeh, one of the most moderate figures in this extremist Knesset, and why now?

After what feels like an eternity of Netanyahu’s rule, one thing is clear: the man and his enablers will stop at nothing to serve his single overriding goal of staying in power. And Netanyahu knows exactly what threatens that goal.

The first threat is public fatigue with the nearly two-year war of annihilation in Gaza, which is dragging on without the return of hostages, and the beginnings of public criticism over the scale of the army’s killing and starvation of Palestinians.

The second threat is a significant rise in Arab voter turnout in the next election. Many saw this as a real possibility; after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s police brutally crushed any attempt to protest the genocide in Gaza, or even express solidarity with its victims, voting against this bloodstained government remains one of the only avenues left for Palestinian citizens to voice dissent.

Netanyahu responded to the first threat with a wild assault on Iran. Experts say it failed to achieve any of its stated goals — but as +972’s Meron Rapoport wrote, it offered a convenient opportunity for both Netanyahu and the military to rehabilitate their public image, after nearly two years of destruction that failed to deliver the “total victory” the public was promised.

The move to impeach Odeh was intended to deal with the second threat. In this sense, Odeh was chosen as a victim precisely because he speaks the language of Arab-Jewish partnership: after all, if the purest dove among Palestinian parliamentarians in Israel can be persecuted because of a single tweet (in which Odeh also expressed deep empathy for Jewish citizens), what’s the point in even electing them?

The message is clear: on election day, stay home. Your vote is futile. 

There is nothing surprising about the attempt to impeach Odeh, but the way Israel’s opposition factions gave this circus their full backing is nevertheless very depressing. Not because, God forbid, we’ve ever known them to be decent, to have a moral backbone or an aversion to fascism or racism. But it is hard to understand why they keep mobilizing to help Netanyahu hold onto power.

After the attack on Iran, instead of demanding clear answers from the prime minister about the pretext for the war, and confronting him with the price it exacted on the Israeli public or the failure to achieve its stated goals, this feeble opposition stood up and applauded him. They handed him a political victory on a golden platter.

 Their enlistment in the persecution of Odeh is even more shameful and stupid. Not only because they know very well how hollow the accusations against him are, but because without significant Arab voter turnout, they will continue to staff the opposition benches until they grow old.

By supporting the attack on Odeh, the opposition gave a valuable gift to the fascist camp, which has already begun the race to obtain the 90 votes needed to make his impeachment official. If they don’t come to their senses and stop this madness before the plenum vote, the opposition will betray not only morality and the very notion of democracy but also their voters, who are desperate to replace this rotten regime. 

One can only hope that the center-left public make it clear to their representatives that, should the opposition’s desire to match the government’s racism every step of the way lead to fortifying Netanyahu’s rule for years to come, they will exact a price at the ballot box. 

A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.