In an interview on Wednesday, MK Aida Toma Suleiman  (Joint Arab List) responded to a bombshell statement by Mansour Abbas, the head of her party, in which he affirmed the Jewish identity of Israel.

While addressing the “Globes” Israel Business Conference” last week, Abbas said, “The State of Israel was born as a Jewish state. That’s the people’s decision and the question is not about the identity of the state. It was born that way and that’s how it will remain.”

Abbas stated his intention to work towards integrating his Arab constituents into the Jewish states. 

In the interview with Golan Yokfaz and Anat Davidov on 103FM, Suleiman strongly disagreed. 

“Abbas proves day after day that for the little he gets, he makes a lot of concessions to basic principles,” she claimed, “He actually says the Basic Law of Nationality is acceptable to him.” 

“The State of Israel was based on the fact that it wants to be a Jewish state while oppressing the Arab and Bedouin population.” She expressed her dissatisfaction with the second part of the trial, saying: “The State of Israel will not remain, in my opinion, a Jewish state. I have the right to determine the nature of the state.”

“We have the full right to be equal citizens. It seems to be acceptable to Abbas that he is not an equal citizen, but a subject of the nation.”

Suleiman, an Arab Christian from Nazareth, is a powerful advocate for the rights of women in Arab society. At her swearing-in last April, she, along with three other MKs from the Arab list, refused to take the vow, saying instead, “I swear to fight the Zionist Occupation. I swear to fight the Apartheid regime.”

Earlier this month, she criticized the Israeli security forces for neutralizing an armed terrorist while in the act of stabbing a Jewish citizen, calling it an “execution.”