Haneen Zoubi, an Arab member of Israel's Knesset, was on board the Mavi Marmara when it was stormed by Israeli commandos four weeks ago. She tells Rachel Shabi about those terrifying hours and how she is coping with the fallout - death threats and political isolation. One of the most striking images of Haneen Zoubi is a recent appearance she made at the Israeli parliament. The Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset was on the aid flotilla trying to break the siege of Gaza that was violently intercepted by Israel a few weeks ago. While trying to discuss the matter in the Knesset, Zoubi was booed, jeered and jostled by fellow parliamentarians, who called her a "traitor" and "terrorist", and demanded that she be searched in case she was carrying knives. Throughout this outburst, Zoubi kept her cool, her voice low and even - the calm in the eye of the vicious storm erupting around her.
"I really didn't feel like shouting back, not at all," she says, recalling the incident. "I would never go to their level. Anyone with a sense of self-respect or dignity would never behave like that." Although some of the comments made by those Knesset members were extremely personal - referring to her as being an unmarried woman, for example - Zoubi is determined to keep things professional. "I have a political argument and wanted to speak about a very serious political activity," she says. "I know how challenging it is to try to get my message across."
It has been a challenging few weeks altogether for this composed parliamentarian, an Arab citizen of Israel, who was elected to the Knesset in 2009. A member of Balad, or the National Democratic Assembly, Zoubi has faced death threats, insults and a constant savaging in the Israeli media since she participated in the Gaza flotilla - and brought back an account of the incident that contradicted the official Israeli line.
She was on board the Mavi Marmara, the biggest of the six-ship flotilla that was attempting to bring aid and international attention to the blockaded Gaza Strip, and upon which nine activists died and dozens more were injured as Israeli commando units stormed the vessel in international waters. After the ship was forced to dock at the Israeli port of Ashdod, Zoubi was interrogated and then released. Since then, because of the threats, hate mail and a Hebrew Facebook page calling for her execution, Zoubi has been appointed a round-the-clock bodyguard.
Meanwhile, a Knesset house committee has voted to recommend that Zoubi be stripped of her parliamentary privileges, such as political immunity and the right to carry a diplomatic passport. Parliament must approve the decision for it to take effect. All that came immediately after the gruelling experience of being aboard the Mavi Marmara, a witness to the chaos and violence in the early hours of the morning of June 1, when the ship was stormed.
"Before [the attack] a lot of passengers were asking me if I thought Israel would attack us," she recalls, sitting in her office in Nazareth where several assistants are busy taking interview requests, relaying messages of support and assessing whether a far right group really will march on Zoubi's home, as it has threatened to do today. "I said that I was sure Israel would prevent us from reaching Gaza."
But then she saw countless naval boats around them and Israeli helicopters circling the skies overhead. "I realised that I had misread the situation ? that Israel's aim was not just to prevent our ship from reaching Gaza, but to prevent any future initiatives like this." Zoubi, as only one of a handful of Palestinian-Israelis aboard the flotilla, found herself in a unique position. As soldiers landed on deck from a helicopter hovering overhead, she went down to the ship's hold and says that, within minutes, two dead passengers were brought inside, followed by two others who'd been seriously wounded.
Appeals to the soldiers for medical help went unanswered and two of the passengers bled to death. But then, when the soldiers had taken control of the ship, they came down to the hold and called for Zoubi, a fluent Hebrew speaker, to help them by translating their instructions. "I shouted back that I wasn't going to help," recalls Zoubi. "I said, 'Why didn't you ask for my help before you murdered these people?'"
But then, she says, she felt a responsibility towards the other passengers. "I wanted to prevent more people getting killed, and my fear was that miscommunication and panic could lead to more deaths," she says. "Everyone on the boat was terrified, screaming and crying." As the other passengers had their hands tied and were forced to sit for hours in cramped conditions without food or water, Zoubi moved freely between them, calmly relaying requests for medial attention and toilet trips and to pray, while passing on directives from the soldiers.
That sense of responsibility she felt at sea seems a constant motivating factor for this quietly convincing woman. Politics, she explains, is not a profession or a calling, but just a part of life. "You cannot be a Palestinian without struggling for your rights," she says. "And for me, freedom is the essence of humanity - without it there is no dignity or pride. So I don't understand people asking me why I took part in the Gaza flotilla." A more appropriate question, Zoubi argues, is why would you not take part in such a campaign.
The 41-year-old, secular parliamentarian was born in Nazareth to a long line of Zoubis who practised politics, among them a former mayor and a former cabinet minister. Her father is a lawyer, her mother a mathematics teacher and both, she says, put great emphasis on the importance of education - sending her to a co-ed, Christian school where autonomy, politics and leadership skills were accented. "I was raised not to fear power," she says. "It was not a deliberate, but they are strong people, my parents. My mother is courageous and has a strong personality and I grew up in a liberal and democratic home as an equal - they would never discriminate between the boys and girls."
With a master's degree in communications, Zoubi had wanted to be a journalist "because it is a profession where you can make a difference, motivate people, influence public opinion," she says. She was always active, in both gender and Arab-Jewish politics, but it was more at the grass roots level, not in a party political context. In fact, she had boycotted the Israeli Knesset elections until the emergence of Balad in the early 1990s. "It is a revolution in the way it takes democracy very seriously," she says. "Not just political but social democracy as well - the role of women and the idea that women should be equal at all levels."
Balad is the first Knesset party to introduce a one-third quota for women, while Zoubi was the first female Palestinian to be elected on an Arab party list in Israel. The party campaigns on a platform of transforming Israel into a "state of all its citizens" - regardless of national or ethnic identity. This puts Balad at odds with Israel's definition as a Jewish state, to which most Jewish Israelis would subscribe. There have been several attempts to disqualify Balad from participation in Israeli elections, on the grounds that it campaigns against the state - but these have all been overruled by the Supreme Court.
Today, Zoubi says she is not scared by all the threats directed at her - but she is not ignoring them, either. "I am very cautious, yes, and worried," she says. "I don't go to Jewish areas alone, as I used to." She feels that she has become a punch-bag, a focus for people's sense of anger and hatred around the flotilla incident and wider Arab-Jewish politics. "I think the hysterical reaction is also an indication of political bankruptcy," she says. "But what worries me is the attempts to de-legitimise me and the politics my party represents."
Cleary her family is a power source for her, but so too are the Palestinians who support and rally round her - even those who did not vote for her now send her letters of endorsement and stop her in the street to express their solidarity. And, as Zoubi is quick to point out, she has also received supportive letters from "hundreds, not tens" of Jewish Israelis. "This is not just a political, but also a social message," she says. "To be a strong woman and to hear the positive reactions to me from men in Saudi Arabia or Egypt - this is an important message for Arab women."
Zoubi's work seems like such an uphill struggle - especially in today's dark climate of increasing hostility towards Arab citizens of Israel - that you wonder if she isn't tempted to crank it down and chose a less troublesome track. She gives a long sigh. "But this is what motivates you," she says. "That you have a responsibility to others. My people are with me and that keeps me going. I just implement things that I believe in - values are a source of strength and inspiration."
