Zoabi Secretly Relieved That Barghouti To Run In Palestinian, Not Israeli Elections

“The Mavi Marmara is small potatoes in the eyes of her voters, compared to complicity in the mass murder of Jews.”

Umm El Fahm, February 24 – Firebrand lawmaker Haneen Zoabi of the Balad Party revealed to confidants today that she breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that when imprisoned Palestinian figure Marwan Barghouti said he intends to run in the next elections, he meant a Palestinian presidential contest, not Israeli parliamentary elections. Zoabi admitted she would be hopelessly overshadowed by a man of Barghouti’s political stature, and is therefore happy not to have to contemplate the prospect.

Aides to Zoabi reported that the legislator visibly relaxed after being informed that she had misunderstood the Fatah official’s intentions, and that in fact he has no designs on competing with her for a slice of the Israeli Arab electorate, but instead seeks the Palestinian presidency. If Barghouti wins, Zoabi and her colleagues in Balad are confident he will see them as important allies.

Barghouti, currently serving several life sentences for involvement in terrorism against Israelis in the Second Intifada of 2002-2005, announced Wednesday that in any electoral contest to replace current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, he will be a candidate. Abbas is currently ten years into the four-year term he began serving in 2006, but is aging, and several would-be successors are already jockeying for position. Barghouti’s direct experience in funding and directing terrorism far outweighs Zoabi’s meager pro-terrorism posturing, and she therefore initially feared being pushed aside by Joint List voters.

“Haneen is an adept politician and second to none when it comes to legitimizing terrorist acts against Israelis,” explained analyst Ayama Djubater, a close friend. “But that’s small potatoes in the eyes of her voters, compared to complicity in the mass murder of Jews in suicide bombings. Refusing to call the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens terrorism and participating in the Mavi Marmara flotilla to Gaza obviously play well with her target demographic, since they reelected her partly based on those actions. But that’s child’s play next to Barghouti’s credentials. As thrilled as we might be for our people to see Marwan in the Knesset, I think I speak for all of Haneen’s close family and friends when I say we’re relieved that her career prospects are not threatened as we thought they were.”

A similar episode of closely-held anxiety on the part of Israeli politicians over being overshadowed or rendered irrelevant by a “big gun” arriving from the outside occurred last year when Labor politicians were confronted with a proposal to bring in British Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to assume the helm of their party.