(Palestinian citizen of Israel, political figure) Zoabi serves in the Israeli Knesset as a member of the Balad party. She is the first Palestinian woman to serve in the Knesset as part of an Arab party's list. Zoabi has spoken strongly against racism in Israel, including the very concept of a Jewish state, and she has spoken out in support of a one-state solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians would enjoy equal rights. Zoabi participated in the 2010 Gaza flotilla, and was arrested briefly after her boat was boarded by Israeli commandos who killed nine of the activists aboard. The day after, during a speech she made at the Knesset, she was interrupted, called a traitor, and shouted down multiple times. She received death threats after the speech. There have been numerous attempts to strip Zoabi of her parliamentary immunity and of her Israeli citizenship, under the claim that her participation in the flotilla amounted to treason. Three of her parliamentary privileges were stripped. Israel's Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Zoabi in both the 2013 and 2015 elections, a decision which was overturned both times by the Israeli High Court. Zoabi was suspended from parliamentary debates for six months following comments she made about the June 2014 kidnappings of three Israeli youth, who were subsequently discovered to have been murdered. See "The Knesset v. Zoabi: Israeli Arab MK's politics put on trial," Mairav Zonszein, +972mag, Dec 9, 2014; and "Arab-Israeli politician Haneen Zoabi disqualified from re-election," Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, Dec 19, 2012.
Jewish nationalism, based on the belief that the Jewish people should have a national homeland. Supporters of this idea are called Zionists. The name comes from the term "Zion" which was an ancient Hebrew designation for the city of Jerusalem. The Zionist Movement took shape in Europe in the late 1800s with the First Zionist Conference in Basel, Switzerland. The movement advocated a national liberation ideology of the Jewish people. Although this ideology had several strands each with different visions, the most prominent became a movement for the establishment of a Jewish state within the biblical Land of Israel. Zionism has many manifestations, from religious to secular, each defining a distinct view of which land should be settled, and how it should be done. There are also Jews (Israelis among them) who consider themselves anti-Zionists or post-Zionists. Zionism has been criticized as a form of colonialism or racism, with its opponents charging that it is politically ethno-centric, and that the realization of the Zionist project led to the displacement of and lack of rights for Palestinians. See " The perennial dilemma of liberal Zionism,"Ran Greenstein, +972mag, Sept 28, 2014. See also "Zionism, anti-Semitism and colonialism," Joseph Massad, Al Jazeera English, Dec 24, 2012.