The Knesset House Committee voted 14-2 on Monday to impeach Hadash-Ta’al MK Ayman Odeh. The necessary three-quarters of the committee voted in favor, including several opposition MKs.
The impeachment vote will now head to the Knesset plenum, where it must receive 90 votes to pass. If it passes, Odeh will still have the right to appeal the decision in the High Court of Justice.
Monday was the second hearing in the committee on this issue. The initial hearing was on June 23.
The factual basis of the impeachment is a contentious matter. According to the quasi-constitutional Basic Law: The Knesset, an MK may be impeached for “support for armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against the State of Israel” or for “incitement to racism.”
Likud MK Avichay Boaron initiated the process in January after Odeh said about Israel and Hamas agreeing to a hostage deal: “Happy about the release of hostages and [Palestinian] prisoners. From here, both peoples need to be freed from the burden of the occupation; we were born free.”
Equating the hostages and Palestinian terrorists, as well as a call to “free the burden of occupation,” had constituted a legitimization and call for violence, Boaron said at the time. He did not receive the requisite number of signatures to initiate the impeachment process.
Boaron revived the procedure in early June after Odeh said during a protest: “After 600 days, there is an overwhelming majority among both peoples saying: If only these 20 months had never happened. This is a historic defeat for the Right, which was defeated in Gaza. Gaza won, and Gaza will win.”
All of the signatures needed to be relevant to the statement in question, and the signatures from January could not apply to the June statement at the protest or any other statement, the Knesset legal advisory team said. Therefore, the only relevant statement was the one in January, it said.
MKs who supported the impeachment disputed the Knesset legal advisory team’s claim and said they had the right to mention other statements despite them not being included in the additional impeachment claim. They repeatedly cited numerous other statements by Odeh as reasons to impeach him.
The impeachment was not just a response to specific statements but directed against “Odeh as a person and everything he represents,” Boaron said in his closing argument.
At the end of the hearing, committee chairman Ofir Katz (Likud) said Odeh was a “bitter enemy” of Israel, and in a “normal country,” he would “rot in jail.”
Opposition MKs from National Unity, Yesh Atid, and Yisrael Beytenu voted in favor of impeachment.
Ra’am (United Arab List) MK Waleed Taha and Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi voted against.
The vote passed 14-2 with opposition from only Israeli-Arab MKs
Odeh did not attend Monday’s hearing, which was legally considered “pseudo-judicial.” He was represented by attorney Hassan Jabareen, the director-general of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.
The procedural flaws mentioned by the Knesset’s legal adviser were sufficient to disqualify the request, Jabareen said. He cited High Court precedent that required a “critical mass” of evidence to impeach, which he said could not apply in this case since the acceptable evidence included just one quote.
Jabareen also cited High Court precedent that expressing happiness over the release of Palestinian prisoners, no matter the severity of their actions, did not constitute support for armed struggle against Israel.
Tibi criticized opposition MKs who supported the impeachment, saying it was part of the government’s “judicial coup” by attempting to suppress voting in the Arab sector. He called his opposition colleagues not to support it.
Baruch Marzel, a far-right extremist who was barred from running in national elections by the High Court, attended the hearing.
During the hearing, family members of fallen soldiers and hostages shouted accusations for and against Odeh.
In response to the vote, Odeh said: “Today, the opposition crossed a redline. Instead of fighting the Kahanist government, they joined forces with it to crush the democratic space. Some of them hate us more than they love democracy. This is not an opposition; it’s a coalition in disguise. This is the final seal of approval on the Nation-State Law.”
“They want to subdue the judicial system, silence critical voices, and turn Israel into a messianic dictatorship,” he added. “Today, it’s me; tomorrow, it will be you. Anyone who dares to resist will be the next target.”
In remarks directed at opposition leaders, Odeh said: “Wake up! Don’t lend your hand to this campaign of political persecution when it reaches the Knesset floor. This is the moment to choose: Either you fight, or you surrender. If you don’t resist now, there won’t be any democratic space left to fight for.”
Following the vote, Boaron said: “Throughout all the deliberations, he [Odeh] neither apologized nor retracted his statements; in fact, he repeated them. He refuses to recognize Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. His words cannot be separated from the broader context, and therefore, I am confident that the decision will be passed by a large majority in the Knesset plenary.
“A member of Knesset who said, ‘Gaza will win,’ while our sons are fighting and dying there, is unfit to serve in Israel’s parliament,” he said. “
An MK who compared the hostages – elderly people, young girls, and shattered infants – to Nukhba terrorists, rapists, and sadistic murderers; an MK who said in an interview with KAN Reshet Bet, ‘I have no problem if soldiers are harmed’; an MK who this week in the discussion on his removal said, ‘The government is committing crimes against humanity. IDF soldiers committed a massacre in Gaza’ – such an MK cannot remain another minute in the Israeli parliament.”
“Every moment that Odeh remains an MK is a disgrace to the Knesset, to Israeli democracy, and an insult to every IDF soldier and every citizen of the state,” Boaron said. “Today, we took the first step in the right direction, and with God’s help, we will complete the process as soon as possible.”