Jerusalem, 23 February, 2022 (TPS) — Israel’s political scene was abuzz Wednesday after Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced he had decided to appoint Member of Knesset (MK) Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, an Israeli Arab activist and politician, as Israel’s Consul General in Shanghai.

Rinawie Zoabi is a member of the left-wing Meretz party and is considered a political headache for the coalition. She has no diplomatic experience. Political pundits explain that her dispatch to Shanghai is an attempt by the coalition to solve one of its many political entanglements.

Responding to the announcement, MK Amichai Chikli (Yemina) said that Rinawie Zoabi “is the architect of documents that describe Zionism as colonialism and Israel as a racist state.”

Quoting Tommy Lapid, the late father of Yair Lapid, he wrote that “the demand of Arab public representatives to change Israel from a ‘Jewish state’ to a ‘state of all its citizens’ is a transparent attempt to empty Zionism of its content. If we give up the essence of Israel as a Jewish state, we have nothing to look for here.

Following her appointment, Rinawie Zoabi said in an interview with Kan 11 Radio on Wednesday that she is sure that Lapid appointed her “because of “all my diplomatic and personal abilities.”

Asked what she will do when the national anthem is played at the consulate, she replied that she does not know Israel’s anthem “by heart.

The Hatikva (The Hope) states that “as long as in the heart, within,the soul of a Jew still yearns.” This “excludes me,” claimed Rinawie Zoabi.

MK Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) said Wednesday that he did not react yesterday to Lapid’s decision “simply because I really ran out of words. It is as if there is no abyss that this government will not degenerate into. Governmental, Zionist and moral corruption.”

“The question is whether there is a red line where those who have previously defined themselves as right-wingers will stop at it. Unfortunately, at the moment it does not look like that,” he lamented.

Miri Regev (Likud) was angered by Rinawie Zoabi’s disrespect of the anthem.

“The woman who does not know the lyrics of the anthem, and as far as she is concerned, it does not represent her at all. How will she represent Israel? As a state of all its citizens? The state of occupation? As a country that when it launches a military operation to protect its citizens she will condemn? As a country that refuses to condemn terrorists who murder innocent Jews? Disgrace,” she stated.

MK Keti Shitrit (Likud) told Radio 103 that Lapid has “opened an employment bureau. I would like to crown Lapid as the king of the trickery and appointments of this government.”

MK Itamar Ben Gvir (Religious Zionism) said that “the bribe given by Minister Yair Lapid, to a Knesset member, will not help him continue his ‘political exit.’ Even if there is one less rebellious Knesset member, the coalition remains conflicted, divided and mostly very artificial, that instead of worrying about the citizens of the State of Israel, it is wasting money on political bribery.”

MK David Bitan (Likud) asserted that “there are lines that one does not cross for political stability. An anti-Zionist figure is not sent as a representative who is supposed to represent the State of Israel as a diplomat abroad. The damage to Israel’s foreign policy and our image in the world will suffer a serious blow.”

Rinawie Zoabi’s appointment will go into effect in eight months, ions in Israeli political terms, and therefore she will continue to embitter the coalition’s days.