Meretz head Nitzan Horowitz. (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)
By Leon Sverdlov
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Peace Now condemned on Thursday [Aug 15] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his decision to ban the entry of US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu, who ceremoniously greeted the fascists [Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro], [Filipino President Rodrigo] Duterte and [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán, refuses to let in US public officials only because he is afraid of their criticism of his, or Trump’s, policies. This is not how a sovereign democracy acts,” Peace Now said in a press release.
It added that “Netanyahu is turning Israel into a cowardly state, that signs treaties with tyrants and is incapable of coping with criticism; one that has no foreign policy, and, most importantly, no backbone.”
“In his weakness,” Peace Now concluded, “Netanyahu is forsaking the strategic asset that is the [US] bipartisan support for Israel. He lets Israel be taken hostage by an American president for his personal benefit. It is unacceptable that a foreign president, as Israel-loving as he may be, would decide who gets to enter Israel and who doesn’t.”
Netanyahu’s decision was earlier criticized by numerous left-wing MKs, including MK Nitzan Horowitz from the Democratic Union and MK Ahmad Tibi from the Joint List.
MK Horowitz said banning US congresswomen is a “bad decision,” adding that it is “not only a confrontation with the Democratic Party, that has always supported Israel, but a fundamental issue: Israel is a free, democratic country, and in such a place [we] don’t deal with criticism by banning one’s entry or exit.”
MK Ahmad Tibi condemned Netanyahu’s decision:
Now its easear to explain for Americans about Netanyahu policy especially for Democratic’s https://t.co/OY8FMGb5qB
— Ahmad Tibi (@Ahmad_tibi) August 15, 2019
MK Aida Touma Suleiman responded to the ban calling Netanyahu’s relationship with Trump “the Strongmen Alliance,” a term used for a self-declared fascist fraction for the Revisionist Zionist Movement, that acted in Palestine in the years 1930-1933.
נתניהו וטראמפ – ברית הביריונים https://t.co/yCIS5KiLnZ
— MK Aida Touma-Sliman (@AidaTuma) August 15, 2019
