Otzma: Yazbak Case Proves Mandelblit Has Double Standard

State Attorney Avichai Mandelblit has requested that United Arab List MK Hiba Yazbak “explain” her comments that IDF soldiers deserve to be victims of terror attacks. The request came in the wake of demands by the Likud and Blue and White that Yazbak be barred from running for the Knesset. But Mandelblit is not giving Yazbak an opportunity to explain herself in order to be “fair,” Otzma Yehudit said in a statement – he was doing it because he favors Arabs over Jews.

If Mandelblit finds the comments made by Yazbak to have violated Israeli laws against advocating for terrorism, it would be seen as a “very serious matter.” Because of its seriousness, Mandelblit wants to give Yazbak an opportunity to explain herself before he takes a position on the ban, his office said.

The petition to ban Yazbak was filed by MK Ofir Katz of the Likud. According to the petition, Yazbak “consistently supports terrorists and spies who have committed terrible acts against Israel and its residents. There is no place in the Knesset for someone who supports terrorists who commit horrible acts against Israelis, who shoot at innocent people. We have a moral obligation to remove Yazbak from the list and not to allow people like this to represent Israel.”

Yazbak has repeated her support for terrorism several times, according to complaints against her; for example, in a Channel 13 interview, she said that “international law allows nations under occupation to act to free themselves.” When asked if that included terror attacks against soldiers, she refused to answer, instead saying that “what is illegitimate is the continuation of the occupation.”

The request for “clarifications” just further proves Mandelblit’s leftist tendencies and his discrimination against the right, Otzma Yehudit said Monday. “It appears that the State Attorney has one rule for Jews and another for Arabs,” the party said in a statement. “Mandelblit never bothered to seek out ‘explanations’ from Michael Ben-Ari, Bentzi Gopstein and Baruch Marzel,” all members of the party, “before banning them from running on our list. But Yazbak, whose comments were much worse than anything the Otzma members said, gets a hearing. This just confirms what we said – Mandelblit has one set of rules for Jews, and another set for Arabs.”