The first deputy speaker of the Legislative Council, Ahmed Bahr, called for the formation of a committee of parliamentarians to pressure their governments to intervene to stop the Israeli Knesset from issuing racist legislation in violation of international and parliamentary conventions and to provide legal support to bring the occupation leaders to the ICC.

   Bahr said in a statement on Wednesday that “since the establishment of the entity until 2016, the Knesset has enacted 178 special laws and decrees that have focused on general strategic dimensions, such as the seizure of the Palestinian territories and the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan in order to evacuate the Palestinians and settle the Jews.”

   He added “In the last two years, the Knesset has enacted a series of laws aimed at the Palestinians. It even described racism from Zionist parties such as the Citizenship Law, which prohibits the enjoyment of citizenship privileges and aims to withdraw citizenship from the 1948 Palestinians, with the aim of displacing them from their land in 1948, and the amendment of the Land Law to allow the transfer of ownership of Palestinian land to the Zionist private sector.

   The new law in the series of racist laws is the deduction of the salaries of martyrs families and prisoners from the tax revenues of the Authority and the law of exclusion, which allows the Knesset to remove a Knesset member during his term of office by a majority of 90 Knesset members.

   He described these laws as intersecting with the laws and regulations enacted during apartheid rule in South Africa, which at that time legitimized discrimination based on race and color.

   Israel’s various laws, especially the Entity’s Entry Law, and the Palestinians’ right to reside in Jerusalem are primarily aimed at legitimizing the expulsion of Palestinians from their city and making their stay “temporary,” such as a “grant” or “gift” from occupation.

   Bahr pointed out that these laws reflect the state of escalating extremism at the top of the Israeli political pyramid, and all indicators indicate that this number will continue to record leaps until the next elections.

   He said that this campaign and the package of racist legislation comes in the period of Arab weakness and the desire of many Arab countries to normalize with the occupation, and this in turn opens the appetite of the occupation for further racist actions against our people during the next phase.