© Photo by EPA
Inside view of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) in Jerusalem, Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv is drafting legislation that ought to resolve in observers' minds the question of whether Israel is the democracy it proudly claims to be.
The bill empowers a three-quarters majority of the Israeli parliament to oust a sitting MP.
It breathes new life into the phrase "tyranny of the majority". But in this case,
the majority will be Jewish MPs oppressing their Palestinian colleagues.
Mr Netanyahu has presented the bill as a necessary response to the recent actions of three MPs from the Balad faction of the Joint List, a coalition of parties representing the often-overlooked fifth of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian.
He claims the MPs "sided with terror" this month when they visited Palestinian families in occupied East Jerusalem who have been waiting many months for Israel to return their relatives' bodies.
The 11 dead are among those alleged to have carried out what are termed "lone-wolf" attacks, part of a recent wave of Palestinian unrest. Fearful of more protests, Israel has demanded that the families bury the bodies in secret, without autopsies, and in plots outside Jerusalem.
There is an urgent moral and political issue about Israel using bodies as bargaining chips to encourage Palestinian obedience towards its illegal occupation. The three Palestinian MPs also believe they are under an obligation to help the families by adding to the pressure on Mr Netanyahu to return the bodies.
Israel's Palestinian minority has a severely degraded form of citizenship, but it enjoys more rights than Palestinians living under occupation.
Comment: For further reading on the BDS movement: Pro-Israel lobby's McCarthyism and extreme measures to slime BDS human rights activists