The two Israeli-Arab parties in the Knesset, Ra'am and Hadash-Ta'al, announced on Sunday that they would boycott a meeting between the heads of their fellow opposition parties due to some of their members' support for the impeachment of Hadash-Ta'al chairman MK Ayman Odeh.
The leaders of the two parties' Knesset factions, MK Ahmad Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al) and MK Walid Taha (Ra'am) announced the boycott "in protest of the cooperation between opposition factions and Likud, Religious Zionism, and Otzma Yehudit — aimed at ousting Arab MK Ayman Odeh over a tweet he posted and his expression of joy regarding a hostage deal."
"According to them, this constitutes political persecution and a crossing of a moral red line: Instead of defending freedom of expression, most opposition factions are joining the extremist coalition — including Likud, Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, and other coalition members — in an effort to silence Arab elected officials. We will not be complicit," they said.
The two stated they will consider further steps depending on developments.
Impeachment proceedings
The impeachment proceedings began last Monday (June 23) in the Knesset Home Committee, and will continue on Monday (June 30).
The hearing is legally considered “pseudo-judicial,” and as such Odeh was represented by lawyer Dr. Hassan Jabareen, the General Director of the NGO Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. According to the quasi-constitutional Basic Law: The Knesset, a member of Knesset may be impeached for "supported armed struggle, by an enemy state or terrorist organization, against the State of Israel."
Launching the impeachment process requires 70 signatures, including at least 10 from the opposition, after which the MK is given the opportunity to argue his or her case in the Knesset Home Committee. If the impeachment is approved in the committee, it reaches the Knesset plenum, where it must receive at least 90 votes. If impeached, the MK can appeal to the High Court.
The process has never been completed before. The closest it came was in February 2024, when a measure to impeach Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif reached the plenum but failed after receiving 85 votes.
The factual basis of the impeachment was itself a contentious matter. Boaron initiated the process already in January, after Odeh wrote on X after Israel and Hamas agreed to a hostage deal, “Happy about the release of hostages and [Palestinian] prisoners, from here both peoples need to be freed from the burden of the occupation, we were born free”. Boaron argued at the time that the equation of the hostages and Palestinian terrorists, as well as a call to “free the burden of occupation,” constituted a legitimization and call for violence.
In January, however, Boaron did not receive the requisite amount of signatures. He revived the procedure in early June after Odeh said during a protest, "After 600 days – there is an overwhelming majority among both peoples saying: If only these 20 months had never happened. This is a historic defeat for the Right, which was defeated in Gaza. Gaza won, and Gaza will win.”
The Knesset legal advisory team stressed that all of the signatures needed to be relevant to the statement in question, and the signatures from January could not apply retroactively to the June statement at the protest. Therefore, the legal team clarified that the only relevant statement was the one in January.
MKs from the coalition in the discussion still repeatedly mentioned numerous other statements by Odeh, despite them not being an official part of the impeachment claim.