Israeli paper Maariv reports on PMW Director’s presentation in Israeli Parliament showing 3 Israeli MPs’ support for terror
On Feb. 4, 2016, PMW released a report in Hebrew exposing that three Arab members of the Israeli Parliament met with families of terrorists who had recently attacked and murdered Israelis. On Feb. 8, PMW Director Itamar Marcus presented the documentation before the House Committee of Israeli Parliament. As a result, the three Israeli Arab MPs were suspended.
Headline: “The [Israeli] Parliament House Committee to the government: Do not release the terrorists’ bodies”
“As a result of the storm awakened by the Arab MPs’ meeting with the murderers’ families [exposed by PMW], the Committee requests that the Balad activity not be encouraged.
The Parliament House Committee decided today (Monday) [Feb. 8, 2016], at the end of a long debate on the matter of the Balad MPs’ meeting with terrorists’ families, to call on the government not to release the bodies of the terrorists who perpetrated terror attacks in the current wave of terror at this stage, because it would constitute ‘encouragement of what the three MPs wanted to do.’ The Parliament House Committee decided to turn to the Ethics Committee in order to impose the maximum punishment. Likewise, it was decided to turn to all bodies of law enforcement to judge them severely, and call for loyalty to the law to give a solution regarding those who harm the state and its citizens…
In the debate, Itamar Marcus, Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), presented a video of the meeting of the Balad members with the bereaved families. ‘We discovered the meeting in the Palestinian media. It appeared on the Balad Facebook page.’ He presented the section in which the father of the terrorist who perpetrated a murder attack in Armon Hanatziv [in Jerusalem] describes the meeting with the MPs as a warm meeting. He explained the word ‘Martyr’ (Shahid): ‘Allah forbids us to speak of them as dead. The Martyr merits the mercy of Allah and no one, including the righteous, wants to return to this world after death, because they see the honor that Allah gives them.’ MP Ksenia Svetlova tried to explain that a Martyr is everyone that is killed, and not only one who perpetrates a terror attack, and caused an uproar in the debate. MP Oren Hazan called out angrily to Svetlova, and she responded to Hazan: ‘Be quiet. I have no respect for you. See what is waiting for you in the Ethics Committee.”
[http://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-525288]