Arab MK Hanin Zoabi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Israeli Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein is weighing pressing criminal charges against Hanin Zoabi, an Arab Knesset member from the Balad party, over an incident last summer in which she allegedly accosted two courthouse officers in Nazareth.

A statement issued by the Northern District Prosecution on Tuesday said that while the State Attorney’s Office has recommended that Zoabi face trial for incitement and offending a public servant, the final decision on the matter is subject to the results of a judicial hearing, since as a Knesset member, Zoabi has parliamentary immunity.

Last July, according to the State Attorney’s Office, Zoabi verbally assaulted two Israeli Arab bailiffs serving at the Nazareth Magistrates’ Court. The state said that following the arraignment of Arab youths detained after rioting over the murder of 16-year-old Muhammed Abu Khdeir in June, Zoabi had accused the bailiffs of being “traitors” and urged others to harm them.

Zoabi said of the bailiffs, “We should ostracize them. We should spit in their faces. They are the ones who testify against our sons and daughters, the ones collaborating with the occupation against their own people.”