Arab MKs boycott Netanyahu’s speech

Arab MKs yesterday boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in commemoration of 67th anniversary of the Knesset, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Arab MK Osama Sa’adi told Anadolu: “We boycotted Netanyahu’s speech in commemoration of the Israeli Knesset to send a clear message to him that we will never accept the policy of his government towards the Arabs, incitement against us and our mosques.”

“Netanyahu practices all kinds of offenses against Arabs, then incites against mosques as he threatens to ban the Adhan [Muslim call to prayer] and he considers our existence a state within a state. This behaviour will not go without taking any measures.”

Sa’adi continued: “All racism we see against Arabs is a result of Netanyahu’s policy towards Arabs.”

In his speech Netanyahu said that democratic states “have to respect Israel instead of criticising it as it is able to guarantee enforcing democracy despite the current instability.”

Israeli Radio reported him saying: “Unlike other countries in the region, which suffer segregation and witness massacres and civil wars, there is a Knesset in Israel, a government, a court and law despite the instability of the whole region.”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said: “Unfortunately, the tension between the Arab and Jewish communities will not fade away in the next few years.”

“If children are growing up without a dream, without hope or without aspirations, with the feeling that their blood and their lives are of a lesser value in the State of Israel, then we must think of how to offer them a dream, hope, and faith—the faith that every one of them has the ability to succeed and to advance here in the State of Israel,” continued Rivlin.

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