On the evening of March 5, Housing Minister Uri Ariel’s spokesman sent a lengthy email message to political correspondents. The inviting subject line read: “Watch: Minister Ariel tells the Arab Knesset members, ‘We can do without you.’” The message included a link to a clip documenting the ugly confrontation that had taken place several hours earlier in the Knesset plenary between the minister from the HaBayit HaYehudi Party and a group of Knesset members from the Arab factions.

At the same time, all media attention was directed toward Israel’s seizure of the Klos-C weapons vessel; the altercation with the minister, which normally would have been prominently reported on the news, was barely mentioned. Ariel’s spokesman was not deterred by the lack of media interest in the incident and kept trying, unsuccessfully, to sell the “hot story” to reporters.

This peek behind the scenes of the housing minister’s media-related conduct is illustrative of the extent to which right-wing politicians gain political capital out of confrontations with Arab Knesset members. Ariel is not unusual: Supporters of the right wing like to see their elected leaders in these kinds of nationalistic displays of power. In the clip, which has already been uploaded on YouTube, the minister is seen reprimanding the Arab Knesset members for failing to understand the significance of the Western Wall for the Jews. As expected, they fought back and a noisy hullabaloo ensued.  

A day earlier, in a Facebook post, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman wrote that since an Egyptian court had banned the activities of the Hamas movement, it was time to remove its representatives from the Knesset, too. Liberman’s remark sparked a stormy Knesset debate with the Arab Knesset members, and at one point Knesset member Mohammad Barakeh pointed at Ariel and said that if there was any Hamas member in the Knesset, it was he himself.