Arab MKs Who Visited Libya Can't Serve in Next Term

Gil Ronen
A7 News

MK Zevulun Orlev (Jewish Home) said Sunday that six Arab MKs who visited Libya have disqualified themselves from running for the Knesset again.

Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi hosted six Arab members of the Israeli Knesset and forty other Arab public figures from Israel Sunday. He spoke before them for more than an hour inside a giant Bedouin tent in the city of Sirat. MK Orlev noted that a law which he had initiated, and that was passed in the previous Knesset, determines that a candidate for Knesset who illegally visited an enemy state in the seven years preceding the election will be seen as having supported armed struggle against Israel and disqualified from running.

Libya an enemy?

Orlev said that he checked with the Defense Ministry and Ministry of Interior and confirmed that Libya is on the list of enemy states, and that the MKs did not receive permission to travel to Libya. The MKs who traveled to Libya include Ahmed Tibi and Taleb A-Sana of Raam-Taal and Muhammad Barakeh of Hadash..

Orlev sent a letter to Judge Ayala Procaccia, the Chairwoman of the Central Elections Committee for elections to the 19th Knesset, and asked that the committee meet soon to decide that the participating MKs and the parties that they represent are disqualified from running for another term.

MK David Rotem (Israel Our Home), Chairman of the Knesset's Constitution Law and Justice Committee, said in a discussion of the MKs' trip earlier in the day that Libya is not formally considered an enemy state.