Precisely 400 days after MK Hanin Zoabi, an Arab Israeli from the Balad party, joined protesters on the deck of the Mavi Marmara during last year's Gaza-bound flotilla, the Knesset moved to ban her from its plenum for a full two and a half weeks. This move is a pity. The Knesset members had good intentions, but the result will be damaging. The Knesset Ethics Committee, which made the decision, points to a failure and a disconnect in the dialogue between the country's Arabs and Jews. Zoabi wasn't upset by the decision. She doesn't care. Being thrown out of the Knesset is a badge of honor she will wear proudly in front of her voters. This is the real tragedy here: In our contemporary Tower of Babel, one sector of society is incapable of understanding the other's language. The Knesset does not need to examine Zoabi's grave conduct on the terrorist ship. The same can be said for her abominable language, in which she suggested that Israel murdered those Hamas sympathizers in cold blood. Yet the Knesset should realize that such a light yet headline-attracting punishment only spurs Zoabi's Arab colleagues to adopt similarly extremist positions. They watch Zoabi and seethe with envy and resentment, because only fruitless words like hers have the power to penetrate television screens and radios to enter the households of Arab voters. The sad truth is that in the current Israeli climate there is no solution for Arab-Jewish relations. Let's not pretend that the parliamentary game follows the same old rules. It doesn't. One side doesn't mind being condemned. It is actually convenient for it to pose as a persecuted minority. And those Arab Knesset members who prefer to accommodate the Jewish majority get swept along in the game as well. If Israeli participation in flotillas is a criminal offense, then let the offenders be tried in a civilian court. Try all of them: Zoabi as well as Raed Salah, the head of the northern branch of Israel's Islamic movement, as well as Israeli pilot-turned-Gaza-activist Yonatan Shapira. Suspend their parliamentary immunity if necessary. But if flotilla participation is not an offense in the law books, then we are better off swallowing these vulgar statements and lies and moving on. A parliamentary punishment that is more suitable to a London gentlemen's club is counterproductive for all of us. The Knesset speaker must conduct the Knesset's affairs with courage, fairness and equity. But it is unnecessary to judge Zoabi and her cohorts for ethical violations. Not because they deserve leniency for statements that went so far as to compare Israeli leaders to Nazis, but because we wish to express the majority's despair at the potential for a dialogue. The Knesset should rescind Zoabi's suspension, not to ease her punishment, but to express a sense of deep disappointment.
