MK Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel
MK Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch MarzelIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Israel’s Northern District Police has given permission to nationalist activists to visit Nazareth and hold a demonstration against MK Hanin Zoabi and her Balad party.

The activists, led by MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) and Our Land of Israel activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir, will come to Nazareth on March 11 and hold a protest over what they termed “the incompetence of the prosecution and law enforcement officials to fight terrorism and the demand to remove Zoabi from the Knesset and declare Balad illegal.”

Zoabi was aboard the Mavi Marmara during the 2010 Gaza flotilla which was organized by IHH terrorists. Her fellow passengers sought to lynch Israeli naval commandos who boarded the ship in accordance with international maritime law.

It is widely believed Zoabi could not have been unaware that the attempted murder of Israeli soldiers was about to occur, but took no action to stop the attack or warn the soldiers. The soldiers, who first attempted to use less-than-lethal arms to defend themselves, were eventually forced to use live fire resulting in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals.

Most recently, a photo was published which shows Zoabi rubbing elbows with well-known Hamas figures. The photo, recovered with a cache of intelligence data in December, shows Zoabi alongside four known Hamas members, two of whom have served time in Israeli prisons for alleged involvement in a terror organization.

One of the terrorists Zoabi was photographed with is Aziz Duwaik, who has served as the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) since January 2006, and who was recently re-arrested by Israel at a security checkpoint near Ramallah.

Just last week, Zoabi was confronted by angry Jewish residents of Kiryat Arba and Hevron as she visited Hevron’s Arab residents. She was accompanied by IDF soldiers during her visit.

The residents, who protested Zoabi’s visit in the area, shouted at her, “Terrorist. Why are you hiding behind the soldiers you attacked on the Marmara?”

MK Michael Ben-Ari said of the visit to Nazareth on Sunday, “Our arrival in the city will come with an unequivocal statement: Do not accept the presence of terrorists in the Israeli Knesset. Only in Israel can there be a situation where a parliament member who receives funds from Israel calls to wipe off the country which gives her the financing, and a party which deals with espionage and helps the enemy in time of war can run in an election.”

Ben-Ari added, “The problem is not just Hanin Zoabi and the Balad Party, but first and foremost Internal Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch and Minister of Justice Yaakov Neeman, whose ministries show weakness in confronting the problem called Hanin Zoabi and the Balad Party.”

Marzel, meanwhile, rejected claims that the visit to Nazareth constitutes provocation, saying, “Just last week Hevron received visits by Zoabi and also by Meretz members. I’m curious to know, why is it that when they come to Hevron it is called freedom of expression and an elementary right, and when we come to Nazareth it is called a provocation?”