Edelstein prevents Knesset conference on ‘occupation’

Joint List MK Dov Henin said events about the “occupation” have been held in the Knesset many times, including recently.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Updated: APRIL 30, 2017 01:25
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (photo credit: KNESSET SPOKESMAN'S OFFICE)
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein
(photo credit: KNESSET SPOKESMAN'S OFFICE)
Arab MKs expressed outrage over the weekend at Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who prevented them from organizing an event at the Knesset marking “50 years of occupation.”
After Joint List MK Aida Touma- Sliman tried to reserve a lecture hall, Edelstein wrote her that she could hold it in her faction room but would not receive communal space of the Knesset for such an event.
“I was sorry to hear about your defiant initiative, which causes unnecessary tension and rifts in the nation, especially at such a sensitive and special time on the Israeli calendar,” Edelstein wrote the lawmaker.
Touma-Sliman asked Attorney- General Avichai Mandelblit and Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon to intervene and get the decision overturned.
“Edelstein is running the Knesset as his personal Likud campaign headquarters and not the home of the elected representatives of the people,” she said. “At a time when the entire world sees the continuation of the occupation as the main obstacle to regional peace, the Knesset speaker opted to silence them.