ISRAEL is not only committing genocide in Gaza, says suspended Israeli MP Ofer Cassif — it is “well on the way to becoming a clear, full-blooded fascist land.”

Cassif is a brave man. His current six-month suspension from the Knesset is for supporting the South African case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice and for calling Palestinians resisting Israeli troops in Jenin in the occupied West Bank “freedom fighters.” But he’s no stranger to being punished for taking a stand against the occupation, having been imprisoned four times during the First Intifada for refusing to serve in the occupied territories.

Currently touring Europe to raise awareness of Israel’s worsening violence against Palestinians — in the West Bank as well as in Gaza — and deepening repression of dissenting voices at home, his reports to Saturday’s Communist Party executive committee and public meeting at the Marx Memorial Library that night made grim listening.