Zionist MP blasted at home for anti-Arab drivel

JERUSALEM: A far-right Israeli lawmaker sparked anger Wednesday after he said he would not want his wife to give birth in a hospital next to Arab mothers — comments widely condemned as racist.
Bezalel Smotrich, a 36-year-old member from the nationalist right-wing Jewish Home party, made the comments on Twitter on Tuesday.
“My wife is totally not racist but after giving birth she wants to rest and doesn’t want the massive celebrations that are customary for the families of the Arab women who give birth,” he said.
Referring to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, he also tweeted that “it’s natural that my wife would not like to lie next to someone who just gave birth to a baby who might want to murder her baby in another 20 years.”
He later deleted both tweets.
Smotrich, who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, has long been known for his harsh rhetoric.
His tweets were in response to reports that some Israeli hospitals were improperly segregating Jewish and Arab mothers in maternity wards.
The party leader, Naftali Bennett, said Smotrich had gone too far, overstepping the boundaries in a country that sees itself as pluralistic and democratic, even if Jews and Arabs live very separate lives and Arabs complain of discrimination.
“The national camp is not hatred of Arabs,” Bennett said at a party conference, going on to quote from the Talmud, rabbinical writings that interpret the bible, about how all human beings — Jews and Arabs — are created equal. “Everyone has a unique soul, a family, a desire to live in dignity,” he said. “We are opposed to divisive discourse among the people and hatred of the other.”
Ben Caspit, writing in the popular Ma’ariv paper, said Smotrich and his supporters were akin to Judeo-Nazis.
“No, Smotrich is not a Nazi, but he is a Jew who has come as close as possible to this questionable title,” he wrote. “A hair’s breadth away. He does not demand to set up concentration camps and to build gas chambers, but he does have a racist ideology.”
Politicians from the right, the center-right and the left offered similar condemnations, although Netanyahu stayed silent. Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament and a gynecologist, expressed his outrage.
“It is a blatant racist comment... and many Israelis are angry at Smotrich for holding the mirror of racism in front of them,” he told the Israeli news site Ynet.
“As a doctor, if Smotrich or his wife needed medical help from me, I would give it without hesitation. I have treated many racists in the past.”
Asked if she would have a problem if an Arab doctor delivered her baby, his wife replied: “The moment of birth is a sacred moment, a pure moment. It’s a moment that is very Jewish. I’d be very pleased if Jewish hands were to touch my baby the moment it enters the world.”