Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka threatened Sunday there will be riots if the government decides to indict 12 residents of the Galilee village of Shfaram involved in the 2005 killing of IDF soldier Eden Natan Zada.
Zada was lynched by an Arab mob, despite having been subdued by police officers after opening fire in a bus crowded with Arabs. The IDF soldier, who had gone AWOL, killed four passengers and wounded nine others before he was stopped by a group of passengers and police officers.
A mob of Arabs immediately wrested the young soldier away from police custody, however, trampling him and beating him to death.
Haifa district prosecutors have ordered 12 Shfaram residents to appear at a hearing on the incident, indicating that indictments might be filed. However, if charges are filed, the prosecution has said it will limit the scope to various degrees of assault, rather than manslaughter or murder charges.
The Arab MK and Balad party chairman called the hearing "an act of provocation" and charged that the police are blaming the victims. "If they indict, they will have riots on their hands," he warned.
Fellow Arab MK and Hadash party chairman Mohammed Barakeh bluntly justified the lynching, adding, that "any minute longer in which Zada would have lived could have claimed the lives of many more of Shfaram's residents. The investigation should focus on the military, which knew they had a dangerous deserter on their hands."
Both Knesset Members have been sharply criticized for their past visits to enemy states and strong statements of support for their actions against Israel.
MK Mohammed Barakeh
Barakeh whipped a crowd of hundreds of Israeli Arabs and Druze in the Galilee city of Nazareth into an anti-Zionist frenzy during a 2005 rally, shouting, "A strong and resistant Syria will bring closer the day in which Jerusalem will become Palestine's capital." The Israeli Arab Knesset Member compared the United States and Israel to a large and small spider trying to create trouble between Syria and Lebanon.
The chairman of Hadash, a nominally communist faction, met in 2007 with DFLP terror leader Naif Hawatmeh in Amman, Jordan, expressing his deep appreciation for the "historic ties" between the terrorist group and his party.
Barakeh was also involved in a rock-throwing riot this year on Independence Day, in which hundreds of Arabs clashed with a group of Jews celebrating the holiday in the Lower Galilee. Five police officers were injured in the melee, and six rioters were arrested. Barakeh and a second Arab Israeli MK, Wasil Taha (Balad) both participated in the riot.
MK Jamal Zahalka
Zahalka was questioned by police in September 2006 over a trip he made to Syria, during which he expressed support for Damascus and Hizbullah terrorist activities against Israel.
Zahalka has often declared his support for the position of enemy nations, claiming that Israel has no right to be in Jerusalem. He has consistently tried to undermine efforts to integrate Arab citizens into the fabric of Israeli society. In October 2007, Zahalka threatened that any Israeli Arab who volunteered for National Service "will be treated like a leper, and will be vomited out of Arab society."
Zahalka's predecessor and former party chairman, ex-Knesset Member Azmi Bishara, was forced to flee Israel last year in the face of an impending indictment on charges of treason for aiding the enemy - Hizbullah terrorists - during the Second Lebanon War.