Israel beytenu

The Knesset House Committee discussed Balad MK Said Naffaa’s request for diplomatic immunity, which comes in the wake of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz’s indictment of Naffaa for visiting an enemy state, meeting with a foreign agent, and making contact with terrorist organizations. The stormy discussion lasted for over five hours.
      During the deliberations, MK Anastassia Michaeli of Israel Beytenu voiced her firm disagreement aganist leaving MK Naffaa’s immunity in place. “In countries such as Syria, for example, the honorable member of Knesset would be given the death sentence for such a violation of the law,” said MK Michaeli. “Yet here, he has the audacity to request diplomatic immunity, which would protect him from being brought to trial,” continued MK Michaeli.
     MK Naffaa claims that the indictment is the result of a political witch hunt against him.   In a lengthy speech, MK Naffaa maintained that his trip to Syria was as the head of a Druze religious delegation on an official visit and had nothing to do with security matters.
    The Attorney General dismissed MK Naffaa’s account of his visit and said, “Naffaa utterly disregarded the decision of the authorities and held a conspiratorial meeting with one of the heads of a terrorist organization and tried to set up another such meeting with a yet another terrorist leader.”
     Beytenu MK and chair of the Knesset Law Committee, David Rotem, responded to MK Naffaa’s claim of having traveled to Syria for religious reasons. “The attempt to claim that Naffaa went to Syria to offer help to fellow Druze is a belated attempt to find an explanation for traveling to an enemy state and meeting with leaders of terror organizations in order to damage the State’s security,” said MK Rotem.
     At the close of the discussion, nine MKs voted to remove Naffaa’s immunity, while two voted to keep it in place.
    Toward the end of the discussion, MK Michaeli made known that she intended to initiate a bill that would immediately revoke the citizenship of any member of Knesset who visited an enemy state without official permission. MK Michaeli’s bill would also prevent to the return to Israel of such an MK.
     “We can not tolerate a situation in which members of Knesset exploit democracy in order to do injury to Israel’s security,” concluded MK Michaeli.

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