6 February 2010
By
Jonathan Cook
Leaders of the Arab
minority in Israel warned this week that they were
facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution,
backed by the right-wing government of
Benjamin Netanyahu,
designed to stop their political activities.
The warning came after Said
Nafaa, a
Druze
member of the Israeli parliament was stripped of his
immunity last week, clearing the way for him to be
tried for a visit to Syria three years ago.
In recent weeks legal
sanctions have been invoked against two other Arab
political leaders, following clashes with the Israeli
security forces at demonstrations against the
occupation, and pressure is growing for two more MPs
to be investigated.
Arab politicians are
particularly concerned about a bill introduced last
month requiring all parliamentary candidates to swear
loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. If passed, the
seats of the 10 Arab MPs belonging to non-Zionist
parties in the 120-member parliament, or
Knesset,
would be under threat.
Jamal Zahalka,
one of those MPs, said: “Every week either the Knesset
or the government try to impose new restrictions on
our activities and freedom of speech. There is a
growing trend towards anti-democratic legislation.”
Mr Nafaa, the latest target
for legal action, was stripped of his
parliamentary immunity
from prosecution last week by a Knesset committee
dominated by the right wing.
Keeping his immunity was
his only hope of avoiding a trial after he was
indicted by the attorney general,
Menachem Mazuz,
in December over a visit he organised in 2007 to
Syria, considered an enemy country.
The MP had arranged for a
group of 280 Druze clerics to make pilgrimage to
Syria’s holy sites via Jordan after they had been
repeatedly refused a permit by the interior ministry.
Mr Nafaa has argued that the clerics were being denied
their religious freedom.
Afu Aghbaria, an Arab MP,
called the case political persecution and asked the
committee: “Do you think he organised an espionage
trip with 280 people?”
Mr Nafaa is also charged
with contact with a foreign agent. According to the
testimony of one of his assistants, who was
interrogated by the Israeli secret police, the MP
discussed the feud between Fatah and Hamas with Talal
Naji, a Syrian leader of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
and tried to meet
Khaled Meshaal,
the head of Hamas in
Damascus.
Mr Nafaa, who denies
meeting Mr Naji, maintains that his visit was entirely
political in nature and that the Knesset’s actions are
designed to prevent him from fulfilling the role he
was elected for by the Arab minority, one in five of
Israel’s population.
Ahmed Tibi, the only Arab
MP on the panel hearing the immunity case, said Arabs
politicians, instead of being prosecuted, should be
encouraged to build bridges to the Arab world on
behalf of Israel.
Orna Kohn, a lawyer with
Adalah, a legal centre representing Mr Nafaa, said
that, whereas the immunity of Jewish legislators was
removed in cases of corruption and serious
criminal offences,
the revocation of immunity for political activities
was “very rare” and appeared to apply only to Arab
MPs.
The last case was against
Azmi Bishara,
who was tried in 2001 on two counts -- for a visit to
Syria and for alleged incitement during a speech --
both of which were rejected by the courts.
Arab MPs have avoided trips
to much of the Arab world since the so-called Bishara
Law of 2008 granted the government powers to bar
anyone who makes an unauthorised visit to an enemy
state from standing as a candidate.
In recent weeks other Arab
politicians have found themselves in trouble.
Last month Sheikh
Raed Salah,
leader of the Islamic Movement, was sentenced to nine
months’ jail after being found guilty of spitting at a
policeman during clashes close to the
al
Aqsa mosque
compound in 2007. Mr Salah, who denied the charge,
said he was the victim of concerted efforts to prevent
Muslims from protecting the holy site in
Jerusalem’s
Old City.
Another Arab leader,
Mohammed Barakeh, head of the
Communist party
in the Knesset, is due to stand trial on four counts
of assault against security officials during
demonstrations over a four-year period.
Ms Kohn, who also
represents Mr Barakeh, said the MP had attended
hundreds of demonstrations at which he mediated
between protesters and security forces.
“Often soldiers turn
violent against the demonstrators and in some cases Mr
Barakeh was assaulted. In such circumstances it is
easier for soldiers to accuse Mr Barakeh of being
violent than risk being accused themselves.”
She said the decision to
indict Mr Barakeh was an attempt to “criminalise” his
political role and reflected an “escalation” in using
the law against Arab politicians.
The spate of indictments
prompted Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Higher Follow-Up
Committee, the main political body for the Arab
minority, to complain last month of “ongoing attacks”
on the Arab leadership.
At Mr Nafaa’s immunity
hearing, Anastasia Michaeli, a committee member and
member of the foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s
far-right
Yisrael Beiteinu
party, said she would introduce a bill to revoke the
citizenship of anyone visiting an enemy state and
deport them to that country.
Colleagues in her party
have already initiated legislation that would require
MPs to swear allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish,
Zionist and democratic state”. Currently the pledge
refers only to loyalty to “the state of Israel”.
Mr Zahalka, leader of the
National Democratic Assembly party, said: “Imagine the
outcry if a Jewish representative in the US or Britain
was expected to swear loyalty to his country as a
Christian state.”
Mr Zahalka was himself
accused of incitement after commenting on Israeli TV
in December that
Ehud Barak,
the defence minister, listened to classical music
while children were killed in Gaza. On air,
Dan Margalit,
the host, called Mr Zahalka “impertinent” and ordered
him to leave the studio.
Danny Danon,
of Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party, subsequently initiated
a bill to bar from the Knesset any MP found to have
incited against the state.
There have also been
demands for another MP, Taleb al Sanaa, of the
United Arab List
party, to be investigated after he used his cellphone
to allow
Ismail Haniyeh,
a Hamas leader in Gaza, to address a group of
demonstrators on the first anniversary of Israel’s
assault on Gaza.
Yitzhak
Aharonivitch, the
public security minister,
was among those calling for Mr al Sanaa’s indictment.
Jonathan Cook is a
writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His
latest books are “Israel and the Clash of
Civilisations: Iraq,
Iran and the
Plan to Remake the
Middle East”
(Pluto
Press) and
“Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human
Despair” (Zed Books). His website is
www.jkcook.net.
A version of
this article originally appeared in
The National
(www.thenational.ae),
published in
Abu Dhabi.
©
EsinIslam.Com
Add Comments
Save