MK Pines
Photo: Niv Calderon
'Can't have it both ways.' Livni
Photo: AFP
MK Pines: Livni sounds like Lieberman
Foreign minister's call for Palestinian state that would constitute national solution for Israel's Arabs draws fire from Labor, Arab Knesset members. 'Israel wants to cement the status of its Arabs as second-class citizens,' Jamal Zahalka says
Knesset Member Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor), while addressing a speech by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in which the latter called for a Palestinian state that would constitute a national solution for Israeli Arabs, said Sunday that "this remark sounds to me like something Minister (Avigdor) Lieberman would say, and is unworthy of Livni".
"I call on Minister Livni to retract the statement. The State of Israel is the home of the Jewish People, but we must remember that it is also the home and state of its non-Jewish citizens," Pines added.
Hadash chairman Mohammad Barakeh said, "It seems that Livni has yet to internalize that Arab and Palestinian Israelis were born here and live in their homeland. They did not immigrate to any other country; it was Israel that immigrated to them."
Fellow Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) responded to the foreign minister's speech by saying that "Israel wants to cement the status of its Arabs as second-class citizens.
"Tzipi Livni can't have it both ways – to say Israel is Jewish and a democratic country and at the same time deprive Arab-Israelis of basic civil rights," he said.
MK Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) said Livni was "setting the stage for the expulsion of as many Arab citizens as possible in order to make Israel a Jewish, Arab-free state.
"The Arabs were here before Ms. Livni and will remain after she's gone," he said.
Roee Nahmias contributed to the report
