The Israeli Central Elections Committee voted Wednesday afternoon to ban MK Heba Yazbak, a member of the Joint Arab List, from running in March’s Knesset election.
The committee voted 27 to 7 in favor of petitions demanding Yazbak be banned, after it was discovered that she had written social media posts praising Samir Kuntar, the Palestine Liberation Front terrorist who led the deadly 1979 Nahariya attack which killed four Israelis in northern Israel.
Yazbak lauded Kuntar as a martyr in posts, while also expressing admiration for Gamal Abdul Nasser, the President of Egypt during the 1956 and 1967 wars with Israel. In other posts, Yazbak praised Rawi Sultani, an Israeli Arab and member of the Balad party who was jailed in 2010 for spying on senior Israeli army officials.
Based on her social media comments, made before her election to the Knesset last year, the Central Elections Committee accepted petitions arguing that Yazbak’s statements constituted support for terrorism.
Yazbak rejected the allegation, claiming she was the victim of a witch-hunt by the “far right”.
“They invested so much effort into finding two posts from 2013 and 2015, and around them they built a false, aggressive narrative, portraying me as a monster, something that simply isn’t true.”
“They’re going after a female Arab politician because of her opinions, not because of her actions.”
Yazbak is expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.