MK Ofer Kasif removed from the Knesset plenum. February 22, 2023/Knesset Channel
37 former ministers and MKs, including two from Likud and one from Mish Atid, signed a petition against the impeachment process of MK Ofer Kasif, from the Hadash party, from the Knesset. Tomorrow morning, the Knesset committee will meet to discuss the impeachment request signed by 87 Knesset members.
The process The same initiator, MK Oded Forer from Israel Beitenu, started after Kassif signed a petition supporting South Africa's petition to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, in which it is alleged that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and also because of Kassif's publications on social media in which it is claimed that Israel is committing war crimes.
"We, ministers and former members of the Knesset, appeal to the members of the Knesset to oppose the wrong move of impeaching MK Ofer Kasif," reads the call published for the first time in Vala.
Its consequences for the democratic space and the political arena are dramatic.
Its immediate meaning is the removal of the Knesset from the list of democratic parliaments."
Ofer Kasif at the Haifa demonstration against the war/Walla! system, Yoav Itiel
Most of the ministers and former members of the Knesset, who signed the petition, are members of the Labor parties and the Arab factions in the Knesset whose current members avoided joining the impeachment process, but there are three more particularly interesting ones on the list: former ministers Dan Meridor and Meir Shetrit of the Likud and former minister Yael German Mish Atid.
In addition to them, the former Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, and the former Minister Uzi Baram also signed the call.
Other signatories are former members of the Knesset Michal Rosin, Colt Avital, Amram Metzna, Masoud Ganaim, Zehava Galon, Zuhair Bahlul, Avraham Borg, Tamar Gozansky, Sami Abu Shahada, Yosef Gabrin, Dov Hanin and more.
As mentioned, the Knesset committee will convene tomorrow for the first hearing on the request to remove MK Kasif from the Knesset. According to the law, the Knesset plenum can remove a sitting MK for inciting racism and supporting an armed struggle against the State of Israel, provided that the removal is supported by 90 members of the Knesset.
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Oded Forer 5/Reuven Castro
There are three stages to the impeachment procedure: the first began after more than 70 Knesset members signed the impeachment request, including 10 Knesset members from the opposition.
The second stage, the Knesset committee will approve with a majority of 75% of its members the request to impeach the MK and after that, the third stage - is the vote in the plenum in which 90 Knesset members are required to support. The Knesset
members of the Labor factions refused to sign the impeachment request. L and R.A.M.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid and ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot have not yet signed the request, as have 9 Knesset members from the Yesh Atid movement.
Despite this, this is the highest number of Knesset members who have signed this type of procedure to date.
MK Oded Forer from Israel Beitenu, who initiated the procedure, collected the signatures of the members of the Knesset and is working against MK Kasif, believes that there will be a majority of 90 MKs in the plenary for impeachment, although even in that case, the impeachment will probably be decided by the Supreme Court judges C.
Meir Shetrit at Yaakov Nimrodi's funeral, August 23, 2023/Reuven Castro
In the meantime, the Civil Rights Association appealed to the legal advisor to the Knesset with a request that she instruct the Knesset committee to reject outright the request for Kassif's impeachment.
In its appeal, the association claims that MK Kasif's signature on a petition addressed to the International Court of Justice in The Hague is not support for an armed struggle against the State of Israel, since the petition does not call for an armed struggle but rather calls for the International Court of Justice in The Hague to act with legal tools to stop what the Knesset member sees as a violation of the law According to the association, presenting it as such blurs the line between violence and diplomacy, and between a peaceful struggle and an armed struggle.
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