Hanin Zoabi
Hanin ZoabiFlash 90

MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) announced on Saturday that she will not run for the 21st Knesset.

"I hereby announce that I will not run for the 21st Knesset. At this moment of my life, after 10 full years, I feel that the time has come, and thanks to everyone, to change the place, but not the way." It should be noted that MK Jamal Zahalka will also not run for another term.

Zoabi added that she intends to continue to act in the same way: "To strengthen Balad's model, for a stronger Palestinian generation, a more determined struggle, and a belief that justice will be done."

“This is a time when it is customary to sum up a period and do a self-reckoning and look toward the future. I will not give myself grades.There were those who appreciated and even supported my actions and what I represented, and there were and are many more who hated and fought against me and my views."

"The Knesset is not a convenient place, to put it mildly, for me it was even hostile, towards me as a Palestinian, and no less as a woman. The feeling of alienation only intensified: Mavi Marmara was not the name of a ship or of a political trip, but was the headline of a struggle I was obligated to wage, and which must be waged daily against the colonialist action and approach. I am no less proud of my party: Balad, because of its vision of a 'state of all its citizens', and no less because of its readiness to establish a model of sacrifice, authentic and self-assured. Without this model, we will be a sad echo in the colonial-liberal discourse."

Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman congratulated, "It is good that a senior fifth-column representative leaves the Knesset. I wish her success in Gaza or Beirut."