In an unprecedented move, the Knesset Home Committee voted to impeach Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif over his signing of a petition in support of South Africa’s move in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The impeachment will now be put to a vote in the Knesset plenum, where a minimum of 90 MKs must vote in favor of the impeachment for it to become final and for Cassif to be expelled from the Knesset. Should this happen, Cassif may appeal against the decision to Israel’s Supreme Court.
The vote to impeach passed in the committee 14-2, with Knesset members from coalition and opposition parties supporting the move and two Israeli-Arab MKs – Hadash Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi and Ra’am MK Walid Taha – voting against it. Yesh Atid MK Merav Ben-Ari left the committee and did not vote.
The vote came at the end of two days of heated debate in the committee, which began after Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer succeeded in receiving 85 signatures from Knesset members – over the 70 Knesset members, including at least 10 from the opposition, necessary to initiate impeachment proceedings.
The Home Committee has only attempted to impeach a Knesset member once before, but never before has the impeachment passed the committee vote.
Petition leads to MK’s downfall
The petition that Cassif signed said that “Israel is indeed taking methodological and fundamental steps to erase, starve, abuse, and expel the population of Gaza. It actualizes a policy of erasing possibilities of living, which leads to genocide. It methodologically kills broad swaths of population, leading academics, authors, doctors, medical teams, journalists, and simple citizens.”
According to the quasi-constitutional Basic Law: The Knesset, an MK can be impeached if he “supported armed struggle, by an enemy state or terrorist organization, against the State of Israel.”
Forer argued during the debate that signing the petition qualified as “support for armed struggle” against the State of Israel, since, had South Africa’s appeal been accepted, Israel would have been forced to cease its war in Gaza, which, according to Forer, would have supported the armed struggle by Hamas against Israel. Forer brought other examples from the past in which Cassif opined that Palestinians attacking soldiers did not constitute terrorism. This also served as proof that Cassif supported armed struggle, Forer argued.
Cassif’s lawyer, Michael Sfard, and Cassif himself argued in response that the fact that Cassif opposed the war did not mean that he supported Hamas’s armed struggle, and to claim so would create a slippery slope. Sfard added that the claim that Cassif, who belongs to the communist Hadash faction, supported the religious fundamentalist Hamas was absurd – and Sfard brought many quotes on Monday from after the war began on October 7, in which Cassif denounced Hamas’s attack, calling it “satanic” and condemning the “carnage.”
Furthermore, Sfard explained that the law requires that impeachment can only be held regarding actions committed during the current Knesset – as voters were aware of Cassif’s actions prior to the election and still voted for him. Any proof that included prior actions were therefore irrelevant, he added.
Both Deputy Attorney General Avital Sompolinski and Knesset Legal Advisor Sagit Afek, the legal experts required by law to give their opinion, accepted Sfard’s argument that Cassif’s signing the petition did not meet the standard of “support of armed struggle,” and therefore did not qualify as a reason for impeachment.
According to Sompolinski, impeachment of an MK was a step that could not be taken likely and could only be based on “clear and sharp” evidence that Cassif “actively supported” armed struggle against Israel – and that his support of the ICJ proceeding, as infuriating as it was, did not meet this standard. Rather than impeachment, the proper procedure to sanction Cassif was in the Knesset Ethics Committee, which can impose sanctions such as removing an MK’s right to speak in the plenum for a set period.
Knesset Legal Advisor Sagit Afek stressed at the beginning of the debate on Monday and again on Tuesday that Cassif could only be impeached for actions committed during the current Knesset, and not past actions or statements. Afek added that the nature of the discussion was judiciary, and therefore the committee members had to be impartial and not take into account political considerations.
Despite the call for impartiality, the discussion in the committee was heated and included much shouting, with Knesset members accusing Cassif of a “blood libel” and of supporting terror, and Religious Zionist Party MK Tzvi Sukkot even saying that the rest of the MKs in Hadash-Ta’al were “next in line.”
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