Posted on 10/13/21
| News Source: Times of Israel
Speaking from the Knesset plenum on Wednesday, far-right Religious Zionism MK Bezalel Smotrich said David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, should have “finished the job” and kicked all Arabs out of the country when it was founded.
During comments on a contentious immigration bill proposed by the opposition, Smotrich shouted about the need to maintain Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state. “Yes, Jewish, with a Jewish majority,” he called out. “With security for the citizens of the State of Israel.”
Smotrich was heckled by several Arab Knesset members and retorted: “I’m not speaking to you, anti-Zionists, terror supporters, enemies,” he said. “You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948.”
In response, Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman slammed Smotrich’s “fascist” remarks.
“We are subject to this fascist filth almost every day in the Knesset,” said Touma-Sliman. “But don’t think about us. Think about how every Arab citizen feels when a statement like this is made casually in the parliament. Think about how every young [Arab] feels when the right-wing threatens a second Nakba,” she added, using the Arabic word for disaster, which Palestinians use to refer to the founding of the State of Israel.