Meretz candidate Jida Rinawi Zoabi clarifies: “I will support all legislation to promote LGBT rights”
During the interview, Zoabi emphasized that “privately – everyone is free with themselves. I believe that religion is responsible for the home and the state is responsible for the street. I am a member of this community and this community is conservative.” She says she knows this issue is controversial. Asked by the interviewer if she would vote for or against the law, Rinai-Zoabi said she would abstain.
“I would not act like the members of the joint list and vote in favor. I come from Arab society,” Zoabi added, answering in the affirmative regarding the interviewer’s question whether she would behave in this way out of consideration for the company’s feelings.
The storm provoked by the interview led the candidate to issue a clarification statement on behalf of Meretz that it would support any legislation to promote LGBT rights. It was further clarified in the announcement that Zoabi “supports the bill banning conversion treatments submitted by MK Nitzan Horowitz. “Maltese treatment is a scourge that must be eradicated from society. It causes serious harm to boys and girls, and this must pass from the world.” Meretz is a human rights party, and advocates equality between Arabs, women, LGBT people and every group in Israeli society, “the statement said.
1/3 All Meretz members, Jews and Arabs, are fully and utterly committed to the struggle for equality and the promotion of the rights of the proud community. In the next Knesset, we will continue to promote my bill to ban conversion therapies, as a joint bill for every Meretz faction.
– March (@meretzparty) March 8, 2021
3/3 This is how she acted in the social organizations she led, and she will continue to act in this spirit in the Knesset for social equality in Israel.
– March (@meretzparty) March 8, 2021
Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz, who himself belongs to the proud community, said in response: “All members of Meretz, Jews and Arabs, are fully and completely committed to the struggle for equality and the promotion of the rights of the proud community. In the next Knesset, we will continue to promote my bill banning conversion therapies, as a joint bill for each Meretz faction, and we will make additional proposals regarding surrogacy, civil marriage, transgender people and adoption for same-sex couples. ”
“Raida Rinawi-Zoabi clarified that her remarks on the matter were made in a wrong way and that she is one hundred percent committed to the struggle for equality of the proud community, based on a basic concept of human equality. This is how she acted in the social organizations she led, .
On behalf of the Association for the LGBT, it was stated in response to the remarks of Jida Rinawi-Zoabi: “We will not accept that they speak to us in two languages. Dissemination of toxic and LGBT messages in Arabic and then subtle messages in Hebrew, as MK Mansour Abbas and others did, is a despicable practice. It is inconceivable that a Meretz MK elected to represent a liberal voice would adopt a double standard of this kind. If Rinawi-Zoabi does regret her words, she is expected to publish it first in the Arabic language and to the Arab public, as she expressed in the first place. “