Israeli MK tells Palestinian lawmaker Jews are 'special race'

Likud MK Miki Zohar made the remarks to Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi during a Knesset Regulatory Committee meeting ahead of a controversial bill allowing representatives from political parties to film inside polling stations on election day.

The committee did not approve the controversial bill for a Knesset reading.

"The Jewish race is a special race and I am glad to be part of it. If you don’t like it, deal with it," Zohar told Tibi.

"You can't preach morals to us because you are anti-Zionists, against the principle of the Jewish state," he added, reportedly in response to Tibi's mention of remarks made by Zohar in 2018 over the alleged supremacy of the "Jewish race".

Following the debate, Zohar spoke to Israel's Channel 12 and claimed that he had not made statements about "the superiority of the Jewish race."

Despite his denial, he added: "Unequivocally what flows in the DNA of the Jewish people is something special."

"What I said, and I still stand by my words, is that the Jewish people are special - they have an unparalleled uniqueness. They are a smart, successful people that demonstrated how in 60 years it is possible to take a country from nothing and turn it into an empire."

Accusations of racial supremacism are nothing new to Zohar, who last year claimed that the "Jewish race is the highest human capital".

"You can't fool the Jews, no matter what is the media writes," he said in a radio interview. "The public in Israel is a public that belongs to the Jewish race, and the entire Jewish race is the highest human capital, the smartest, the most comprehending."