There is so much to write about Azmi Bishara, one of the few Palestinian citizens of Israel that serves in the Knesset, and has done so for the past 11 years. But in the past few years, he has been beset by a number of pressures and attacks, some on his life. Back in September 2000, when the Intifada began again in the West Bank and Gaza, there were also demonstrations in Palestinian areas of Israel, most notably in the Galilee, where Bishara is from. After snipers were dispatched to the towns, 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel were dead. Here's an article that runs down some of it (I reccomend an excellent interview with Azmi in this book;
Arabs furious at police decision
Arabs, left-wing blast police decision not to indict any officers over deaths of 13 Arab civilians during October, 2000 riots in support of Aqsa Intifada. MK Cohen: 'racist decision'. MK Barake: 'premeditated murder against Israeli citizens'
Israeli Arab leaders and left-wing politicians slammed Sunday's decision by the Police Investigations Committee not to prosecute any police officers for the deaths of 13 Arab civilians during riots in support of the al-Aqsa Intifada in October, 2000.
Knesset Member Azmi Bishara (Balad), said: "Our son's blood is not free. From the first moment onwards, it was clear that the Police Investigations Unit was sweeping the crime underneath the carpet instead of finding the guilty ones. For the life of ours sons in the future, we can't be silent in light of these findings. We will recommend a harsh response, including general strokes [sic] and demonstrations in all the Arab villages."
Knesset Member Ran Cohen (Yahad-Meretz) said, "it turns out that racism has also spread to the judicial system, otherwise the decision not to launch charges is incomprehensible. The responsibility for this falls on the Attorney General, who must place charges and apply the conclusions of the Or Commission."
Azmi is also well known for his writing, in such places as Al-Ahram, as well as his insistence on mantaining ties with the surrounding Arab communities, in Syria and Jordan, for which he has been hounded by Israel's Shin Bet, of course. Here's the latest insanity from the Shin Bet, where Palestinian citizens of Israel are warned of using legal & democratic means to change Israel from a Jewish state to a state of its citizens (thus Israel offically joins the ranks of such ideological states as The USSR and East Germany, among others);
PMO to Balad: We will thwart anti-Israel activity even if legal
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
The Prime Minister's Office has sent a letter to the editor of the publication of the predominantly Arab party Balad saying it would combat the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm Israel's "Jewish or democratic character," even if that activity was carried out through legal means.
"The Shin Bet security service will thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law," read the letter, sent by the Prime Minister's Office on behalf of the Shin Bet to editor Ala Hlehel.
Hlehel petitioned the PMO last week following media released information of a closed-door meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, in which the latter reportedly described Israel's Arab population as a "strategic threat" to the prime minister.
And what kind of "subversive" activity are they engaged in? Well, there have been a couple of key documents written by Palestinian citizens of Israel which seek to highlight the discrimmination and oppresion they face in the Jewish state, and strategies for change, such as "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel" by the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, the Musawa oganization's "Ten Point Document," the "Democratic Constitution," by the Adala Center and the yet unpublised "Haifa Treaty.""
Democracy is pretty frightening to Zionism, eh?
As for Azmi's writing (The man is multi-lingual, by the way, knowing Hebrew, Arabic, English, and a few other languages I believe) here is an excerpt from one of my favorite articles by Bishara, written in January of 2004, on the Apartheid nature of Israel, as compared to French Algeria and South Africa;
A short history of apartheid
Rhetoric about demography so dominates Israel's political discourse that one might be tempted to assume that Israel has abandoned its preferred designation as the Jewish democratic state in favour of the Jewish demographic state.... The mania, of course, is rooted in Zionist principles, in the need to maintain a Jewish majority capable of implementing a democracy that will absorb the Diaspora, accommodate pioneer settlement and the assumption of a common history, and that allows for the fetishisation of military service. For without any of the above Israel would have to practice government by the minority, which inevitably leads to apartheid or racial segregation, to government by a national minority that sees the state as the embodiment of its legitimacy. Such practices demand dual sets of legality... Zionist colonialism inhabits the space between two extinct models -- those provided by South Africa and French practice in Algeria. It is not a blend of the two, but rather a distillation of the worst in each.
In South Africa, that pioneer of apartheid, racial segregation was not absolute. It took place within a framework of political unity. The racist regime saw blacks as part of the system, an ingredient of the whole. ... French colonisation presented an opposite model, replete with geographic, cultural and societal separation between two entities, the occupier and the occupied. Whereas the Boers saw South Africa as their home and fought a ferocious war against what they considered British occupation, the colonisers of Algeria had a "mother county", an offshore home to look to. The impulse of French colonialism was to achieve unity within the separation between France and Algeria, not separation within the unity, as was the case in South Africa.
The case of Palestine is not an attempt to achieve separation within unity, as was the case with apartheid, nor is it an attempt to unify what was originally separate, as was the case in Algeria. The Israelis identify with the land, but keep away from the locals. The Israelis want to stay in the country and deny citizenship to its inhabitants. Or they want to be separate but hold on to the settlements. Barriers and walls are the rule, not the exception.... This unique type of colonialism does not seek to "develop" the inhabitants, as other colonialists once did in homage to the "white man's burden". This colonialism displaces people, confiscates their land or bypasses them (the term, often applied to roads, is pertinent). It "develops" the land for settlement, but not for the inhabitants.
Separation, within separation, is the logic of Zionist colonialism, the thinking behind the wall of racial segregation, where Israel continues its crimes of barbarism...It is difficult to describe the maze of walls and barriers constructed around the villages in the vicinity of Jerusalem. It is difficult to imagine the ugliness brought about in the course of controlling people and land: gates and observation towers, double walls, barbed and electrical wires. What we have here is a wide-scale recreation of the detention camp which Giorgio Agamben called the essence of the modern fascist state. This is a place where the exception becomes the rule, and the state of emergency becomes permanent, to use the words of Walter Benjamin.
And now onto the recent insanity, where the Israeli press has been following, but tending to skirt the edge of what is actually happening. So first, a few articles from the Israeli press.
First, after days of speculation, Azmi announces his intention to resign from the Knesset;
MK Azmi Bishara confirms intent to resign from Knesset
Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara confirmed his intention to resign from the Knesset yesterday, telling the Nazareth-based newspaper Hadith A-Nas that he is being persecuted.
"Despite of what the mercenaries are writing, it was not the recent developments that pushed me to resign, but thinking about it all again and about the rules of the game," he said in an interview that will be published today.
Bishara added that his decision was based on the fact that he has exhausted the parliamentary tools at his disposal. "I did what I could with the tools I had available," he told the paper. "Eleven intense years are enough for me."
And here is another from the following sunday, about the challenge that true democractic principles poses to the Jewish state, and it's determination to crush such change;
Bishara: Israel can't deal with the challenge I present
Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara, who left Israel for a covert trip abroad earlier this week amid rumors of his pending resignation from Knesset, lashed out at the state on Friday, saying it "would not be able to handle the challenge I've presented on the issue of its Jewishness and the position of Zionism here."
"Despite of what the mercenaries are writing, it was not the recent developments that pushed me to resign, but thinking about it all again and about the rules of the game," he said in an interview published Friday.
"Is it possible for me to be called a member of Knesset and be persecuted in this way?," he was quoted as saying.
Here is an op-ed by Danny Rubenstein on Azmi Bishara and his leadership with in the Palestinian community, with a very interesting title;
Is Bishara the 'Palestinian Herzl'?
By Danny Rubinstein
The recent affair concerning the criminal investigation of MK Azmi Bishara, the Israeli Arab Balad party chairman who has left the country, has spawned a multitude of journalistic reports and commentaries. Palestinian political commentator Hassan al-Batal went as far as to write that the lawmaker "could have become the Palestinian Herzl," referring to the founder of Zionism.
The comparison to Darwish was not incidental. Darwish was born in 1942 in the village of Al-Birwah near Acre, which was demolished during Israel's War of Independence. He grew up in a nearby village and worked for the communist newspaper Al-Ittihad until he left Israel in 1971. He became a prominent activist for the Palestine Liberation Organization and has been for many years one of the Arab world's most notable poets. His work achieved renown following the 1967 Six-Day War, owing in part to an editorial by the renowned Syrian poet Nizar Kabbani in a Lebanese literary magazine.
This single state would not be a "secular democratic nation," as the PLO advocated in the past, nor would it be a state of all its citizens, which is the cause Bishara has set out to realize. The strong Jewish majority would not allow that. The only option remaining would be an apartheid state, whose first signs - and possibly more than just that - are already visible in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Here is another article where Azmi accuses the media of inciting violence against him (wouldn't be the first time; his home was attcked by a mob in October of 2000 and the police took part)
Azmi Bishara accuses Israeli media of inciting his murder
MK Azmi Bishara (Balad) lashed out Friday against the country's Hebrew-language media, accusing them of incitement against him.
"The publication of a photograph of my home and its address in newspapers constitutes incitement to murder. It makes me rethink my position as a Knesset member," Bishara said in an exclusive interview to the Nazareth radio station A-Shams, his first interview to electronic media since leaving Israel three weeks ago. Bishara said he would grant interviews to other Arabic-language media outlets over the coming days.
In an interview to the Taibeh-based Arabic magazine Panorama, Bishara said that the nationalist stream within the Arab public was threatening to Israel. "We do pose a threat, and that's why we are seen as a danger," Bishara said. "It would be illogical if we weren't seen as a danger and if we were not opposed," he said, adding, "we stand against the defective situation of those who are connected to Israelization and to the regime."
The conflict heated up, partly as a result of the demand to change the character of the state and Bishara's fight against Zionism. It was further inflamed, Bishara charged, by the Arab community's demand for administrative autonomy as well as its "identification with the Lebanese people against the attacks on it" during last summer's war.
And finally, I present you with an article from electronic Intifada, by Ali Abunimah. It has been reposted with full permission from the site, and it fills in the blanks as to the investigation and state pressure on Azmi, as he is not able to speak fully on the matter in the media. It also speaks on an important point for those in the Palestine Solidarity community. We tend to focus on those Palestinians under occupation, and we thereby intentionally (see Carter) or unintentionally overlook the other Palestinian communities under assault; the Palestian citizens of Israel, and the refugees, all of whom Israel either expells, oppresses, or exiles, all for the preservation of the Jewish state.
here it is,
What the persecution of Azmi Bishara means for Palestine
The Israeli state and the Zionist movement have begun their latest assault in their century-long struggle to rid Palestine of its indigenous people and transform their country into a Jewish supremacist enclave: the persecution of Azmi Bishara, one of the most important Palestinian national leaders and thinkers working today. This case has enormous significance for the Palestinian solidarity movement.
Bishara is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, one of more than one million who live inside the Jewish state, who are survivors or their descendants of the Zionist ethnic cleansing that forced most Palestinians to leave in 1947-48. Elected to the Knesset in 1996, Bishara is a founder of the National Democratic Assembly, a party which calls for Israel to be transformed from a sectarian ethnocracy into a democratic state of all its citizens.
On Sunday, Bishara appeared on Al-Jazeera, after weeks of press speculation that he had gone into exile and would resign from the Knesset. He revealed that in fact he is the target of a very high level probe by Israeli state security services who apparently plan to bring serious "security" related charges against him. Censorship on this matter is so tight in "democratic" Israel that until a few days ago Israeli newspapers were prohibited from even mentioning the existence of the probe. They are still forbidden from reporting anything about the substance of the investigation, and Ha'aretz admitted that due to official censorship it could not even reprint much of what Bishara said to millions of viewers on television.
Bishara himself was vague about the allegations. If he even knows all the details, he could place himself in greater jeopardy by talking about them. He said he is still thinking about his options, including when to return to Israel. While he questioned the value of spending years proving his innocence of things he does not consider illegal, such as maintaining broad contacts with the Arab world of which he feels a part, he poignantly reflected that ultimately he faced a choice between prison, exile or martyrdom. These indeed are the only choices Israel has ever placed before Palestinians who refuse to submit to the racist rule of Zionism.
What he was clear about was that he is the target of a campaign, coordinated at the highest levels of the Israeli state to destroy him and his movement politically. He is undoubtedly right about this and there is long precedent. In 2001, Israel's attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein charged Bishara with "endangering the state" because of comments he made during a visit to Syria, and the Knesset voted for the first time in its history to lift the immunity of one of its members so Bishara could be prosecuted. In 2003, the Israeli Central Elections Committee attempted to disqualify Bishara and his party from standing in national elections, on the grounds that the party did not adhere to the dogma that Israel must remain a "Jewish state." Under Israeli law all parties are required to espouse the dogma that Israel must always grant special and better rights to Jews, meaning truly democratic parties are always flirting with illegality. That decision was eventually overturned by the courts. (Though it should be noted that the ban was supported by former attorney general Rubinstein, who is now a Supreme Court judge!). Such persecution against Palestinians in Israel has been the norm since the state was founded. Until 1966, they lived under "military government," a form of internal military occupation similar to that experienced by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza today. Laws, practices and policies that continue to deny their fundamental human rights are well described in Jonathan Cook's recent book Blood and Religion: Unmasking the Jewish and Democratic State. In recent years opinion polls show that a majority of Israeli Jews consistently support government efforts to force Palestinian citizens out of the country. (In recent weeks, former Israeli prime minister and current Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu declared that it would be best if Bishara never returned).
Bishara sees Israel's latest gambit as signalling a change in the "rules of the game." If he, an elected official, a well-known public figure can face such tactics, what will the rest of the community face? Indeed, the recent publication by leading Palestinians in Israel of a report calling for mild reforms to the Israeli state prompted Israel's secret police, the Shin Bet (which operates torture and death squads in the occupied territories) to warn that it would "disrupt the activities of any groups that seek to change the Jewish or democratic character of Israel, even if they use democratic means" ("Arab leaders air public relations campaign against Shin Bet," Ha'aretz, 6 April 2007). (There is precedent for such disruption not only against Palestinians, but even against Israel's Mizrahi Jews whose attempts to organize against Ashkenazi discrimination were destroyed by the Shin Bet -- see Joseph Massad's book The Persistence of the Palestinian Question.)
Palestinian solidarity activists must understand and act on the signal Israel is sending by persecuting Bishara. For years, the mainstream Palestinian movement and its allies have buried their heads in the slogan "end the occupation." If it ever was, this vision is no longer broad enough. We must recognize that Israel's war against Palestinians does not discriminate among Palestinians, sparing some and condemning others. It does however take different forms, depending on where Palestinians are. Those in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under an extreme form of military tyranny now often called "apartheid," though it is increasingly apparent that it is something even worse. Palestinians inside Israel's 1948 borders live under a system of laws, policies and practices that exclude them politically and oppress them economically and socially. Millions of Palestinians outside the country are victimized by racist laws that forbid their return for the sole reason that they are not Jews.
In practice this means that the Palestinian solidarity movement needs to fashion a new message that breaks with the failed fantasy of hermetic separation in nationalist states. It means we have to focus on fighting Israeli racism and colonialism in all its forms against those under occupation, against those inside, and against those in exile. We need to educate ourselves about what is happening all over Palestine, not just in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We need to stand and act in solidarity with Azmi Bishara and all Palestinians inside the 1948 lines who have for too long been marginalized and abandoned by mainstream Palestinian politics. Support for the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions is particularly urgent (see http://www.pacbi.org/... In practice we need to start building a vision of life after Israeli apartheid, an inclusive life in which Israelis and Palestinians can live in equality sharing the whole country. If Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and hardline Northern Ireland Unionist leader Ian Paisley can sit down to form a government together, as they are, and if Nelson Mandela and apartheid's National Party could do the same, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility in Palestine if we imagine it and work for it.
Azmi Bishara is the only Palestinian leader of international stature expressing a vision and strategy that is relevant to all Palestinians and can effectively challenge Zionism. That is why he is in fear for his life, safety and future while the quisling "president" Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah receives money and weapons from the United States and tea and cakes from Ehud Olmert.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006)