A firebrand Israeli parliamentarian provoked a political and social media storm earlier this week when he signed a petition supporting South Africa’s case of genocide towards Israel, which is to be heard on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
Ofer Cassif, who declared his backing for South Africa on social media, will help the nation’s authorized bid when it comes earlier than the ICJ on Thursday and Friday this week.
“My constitutional responsibility is to Israeli society and all its residents,” he wrote on X on January 7. “To not a authorities whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleaning and even precise genocide. They’re those who hurt the nation and the individuals, they’re those who led to South Africa’s attraction to The Hague, not me and my pals.”
The Palestinian dying toll from Israel’s near-100-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip has crossed 23,000 individuals, together with practically 10,000 kids.
Who’s Ofer Cassif?
Cassif is a politician from the left-wing, Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al get together, Hadash being the Hebrew acronym for the Democratic Entrance for Peace and Equality. Born in Rishon LeZion close to Tel Aviv in 1964, he has been a member of the Israeli parliament for practically 5 years.
Cassif has a doctorate in political philosophy from the London College of Economics and he was an instructional on the Hebrew College of Jerusalem earlier than he entered parliament.
His penchant for going towards the grain of Israeli society will not be new. Within the late Nineteen Eighties, the pro-Palestinian Israeli, who can be a proud communist, hung out in jail for refusing to function a soldier within the occupied territories.
In 2021, he claimed police beat him whereas he participated in a protest towards an unlawful Jewish settlement in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
His pre-parliamentarian assaults on the Israeli state – as an illustration, calling one-time Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked “neo-Nazi scum” – led the Central Elections Committee to maintain him off the poll for the 2019 elections.
That call was overturned by the Supreme Court docket, nevertheless, and he was elected that yr, with Hadash-Ta’al receiving just under 4.5 p.c of the nationwide vote and 6 seats within the Knesset. This compares with greater than 26 p.c of the vote and 35 seats for every of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud get together and Kahol Lavan, the opposition political alliance led by former Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who can be a member of Netanyahu’s warfare cupboard.
Yossi Mekelberg, an affiliate fellow with the Center East and North Africa Programme at Chatham Home, referred to as Cassif “an anomaly in Israeli politics”.
“The overwhelming majority of Israeli members of the Knesset are serving in Zionist events – and this isn’t the case with Cassif,” stated Mekelberg of the anti-Zionist politician.
He angered some by refusing to take a supportive stance in direction of Ukraine in its warfare with Russia. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Knesset through Zoom in March 2022, a month after the Russian invasion, Cassif declined to attend.
“I don’t take sides in a useless warfare that harms harmless civilians, strengthens individuals in energy and enriches the lords of warfare,” stated Cassif in a tweet. “I don’t help nationalists and persecutors of the communists in Ukraine, and no, neither do I help Putin and the Russian communist-hating nationalists. No to warfare – sure to peace.”
What’s his imaginative and prescient for Palestine?
Cassif is a staunch supporter of a two-state resolution for Israel and Palestine.
In December 2023, throughout a dialog which was transcribed on the web site of the Communist Celebration of Israel, he stated, “The Palestinians, as a individuals, are entitled to have their very own impartial state.
“The compromise is by dividing the land alongside the state of Israel, an impartial, sovereign, Palestinian state, which might exist within the previous territories that Israel occupied in June ’67. Which means the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the West Financial institution. There isn’t a different manner.”
He’s strongly against Israeli settlements within the Palestinian territories and has protested towards them. In February 2022, he joined protesters within the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, the place households had been being evicted from their houses in order that settlers may very well be moved in.
How has Cassif’s stance gone down with the Israeli individuals?
Not effectively. Cassif is one in all simply 400 Israelis, in a inhabitants of practically 9.5 million, to signal a petition supporting South Africa’s lawsuit towards Israel. As a member of the Knesset, his public act of defiance has gone down like a purple rag to a bull.
Within the wake of the Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, which prompted the nation to unleash its marketing campaign of aerial bombardments towards Gaza, Cassif was suspended from the Knesset for 45 days for criticising the warfare.
Fellow Israeli parliamentarian Oded Forer referred to as Cassif’s choice to face towards the nation of his beginning “treasonous”, including that his “phrases can not be heard whereas the blood of our troopers and residents screams from the bottom”.
Forer is at present amassing lawmakers’ signatures in a bid to have Cassif thrown out of the Knesset. Beneath Knesset guidelines, Forer must persuade 70 members of parliament to help his bid after which acquire approval from the Knesset Home Committee, earlier than parliament can vote on Cassif’s expulsion.
However Cassif seems to benefit from the tough and tumble of Israel’s unstable political scene. “He’s, in some ways, extra of an activist than a parliamentarian,” stated Mekelberg of Cassif. “And what you see is what you get.”
Cassif misplaced pals within the Hamas assault, which killed some 1,139 individuals. Certainly, in an October 19, 2023, interview with New York-based Waging Nonviolence, he referred to as the Hamas incursion “morally despicable”.
However in the identical interview, 12 days after Israel started its bombardment of Gaza, he advised the non-profit media organisation that his vociferous rejection of Israel’s army response had led to him being “viciously attacked by Israeli right-wingers, together with dying threats, for my view”.
He added, “They merely can not tolerate, they usually wouldn’t like to simply accept that I, and everybody else, can present sympathy and empathy for the harmless individuals in Gaza. On the similar time that one exhibits sympathy and look after the individuals of Israel. It’s not a contradiction.”
What do pro-Palestinian Israelis consider him?
On social media, world supporters of Palestinian rights have lauded Cassif’s choice to go public together with his stance on the South African ICJ case towards Israel. Nevertheless, on the bottom in Israel itself, opinions about him among the many pro-Palestinian left are slightly extra nuanced.
“He’s somebody we respect and help for his stance towards the genocide, regardless of there being some political variations with a few of us,” stated Neta Golan, an lively member of Israelis Towards Apartheid.
Ofer Neiman, a pro-Palestinian Israeli activist from Jerusalem, stated he believes that Cassif is just too “smooth” on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Neiman added, “I [also] disagree with him on … [his] reluctance to contemplate different choices past the two-state resolution. However Palestine and the genocide is the main focus right here. So, in a nutshell, he’s a fellow dissident to me.”
