Responding to calls by MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash-Ta’al) for the Arab sector to join the anti-government protests focused on judicial reform, MK Tzvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism) has highlighted one of the main reasons why his party is insistent that the reforms go ahead.
Speaking in the Knesset plenum, Odeh said that, “We must say a good word about the Supreme Court, since it was the Supreme Court which permitted Heba Yazbak to be a candidate for the Knesset, even though the Central Elections Committee invalidated her.”
Yazbak’s candidacy for the Knesset was indeed invalidated by the committee due to her expressions of support for serious terrorist crimes. The Labor and Blue & White parties both supported the ban on Yazbak, but the Supreme Court overturned the ban and Yazbak was elected as a Knesset member for the Balad party and served as an MK for two years. She later became the subject of a police investigation on suspicion that she was guilty of incitement, but the case is expected to be closed without a prosecution.

Yazbak had publicized a number of posts on social media in praise of the notorious terrorist murderer Samir Kuntar who murdered Danny Haran Hy”d in front of his four-year-old daughter Einat in 1978, and then murdered her as well. Yazbak also expressed support for Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist who was responsible for the murders of thirty-eight Israelis, also in 1978.
Citing Odeh’s words as proof of the necessity of reforming Israel’s judicial system, Sukkot said, “Ayman Odeh is right! This is exactly what the Supreme Court is like. Do we want to continue to have a Supreme Court that permits those who support terrorism to serve in the Knesset? Please do recall that the Blue & White party and even the Labor party supported the invalidation of Heba Yazbak as a supporter of terrorism, but the Supreme Court overturned the invalidation.
“This is exactly what the reforms are all about,” Sukkot stressed. “It’s about time that the Supreme Court was cut down to size.”