Likud's #23 candidate, Dr. Anat Berko, revealed that she opposes the petition to disqualify MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) from running with the Joint Arab List for the 20th Knesset.
"I'm not a fan of Miss Marmara," Berko said, in reference to the infamous 2010 flotilla claiming to carry "humanitarian aid" from Turkey into Gaza that Zoabi travelled on.
"But democracy has to also absorb people such as her," she continued on television's Knesset Channel. "Zoabi needs to be in the Knesset."
Two separate petitions have been filed with the Central Elections Committee against the radical MK who has been supportive and sympathetic to terrorist organization Hamas.
The first, from as far back as December, was initiated by Berko's fellow Likud member MK Danny Danon, who began collecting signatures from members of the Central Elections Committee in an effort to disqualify Zoabi.
Danon's campaign was based on article 7A of The Knesset Basic Law, which disallows candidates who call for "armed struggle, by an enemy state of terrorist organization, against the State of Israel."
MK Yariv Levin and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, both also from Likud, signed that petition.
The second request was filed by MK Alex Miller (Yisrael Beytenu) two weeks ago, and was signed by several Jewish Home, Likud, and Shas officials.
Berko, thus, is effectively going out on a limb against several senior members of her party on the same day the request for Zoabi's disqualification are to be broached by the committee.
The professor, though a world-renowned terrorism expert, is a novice to politics, having been appointed directly by Likud Chairman, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to the 23rd spot of Likud's list for the 20th Knesset.
Despite Berko's objections, it appears the request against Zoabi will be approved, as Labor-Hatnua representatives to the Central Elections Committee intend to press for her disqualification as well as that of Baruch Marzel.