Zouheir Bahloul
Zouheir BahloulYoav Dudkevich/TPS

MK Zouheir Bahloul (Zionist Union) said on Wednesday he was contemplating leaving the Labor party.

Speaking at a conference in Eilat, Bahloul was asked whether Zionist Union chairman Avi Gabbay had showed him the way out, and replied, "No one showed me the way out."

However, he hinted that he was considering his future in the party. "I will decide whether I will continue or not. I do not always feel good in the Labor party, and I do not always find the ideology there. I am an opposition within my own party. Things don’t always fit with my world view.”

Asked if he would contemplate joining the Arab Joint List, Bahloul jokingly replied, "Two parties - Shas and United Torah Judaism - are flirting with me."

Gabbay heavily criticized Bahloul several months ago and said he did want him to be a part of Labor in the next Knesset. This was after Bahloul announced he will not take part in the special Knesset plenum session marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Balfour Declaration.

"I am part of the Zionist Union, but I am not a Zionist myself, and I cannot be a Zionist. As a Palestinian, in the second part of my identity and substance, I deserve at least recognition of my narrative. I do not think I should participate when I am not free,” he said at the time.

Bahloul caused an uproar in 2016 when he claimed that an Arab terrorist who stabbed a soldier in Hevron was not a "terrorist".

He later toned down his rhetoric, saying, “It is impossible to attribute such things to me. Are you crazy? The soldiers are victims of the cursed politics under which we live. These may be the children of my neighbors, would I want for their lives to end? All I said was that we must speak in terms that will awaken Israelis from their slumber. There is occupation.”