[WCUSP] Azmi Bishara: Why Israel Is After Me (LA Times)

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

_http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bishara3may03,0,2351340.story?coll=
la-opinion-rightrail_ 
(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bishara3may03,0,2351340.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail) 


Why  Israel is after me
By Azmi Bishara

AZMI BISHARA was a member of the  Knesset until his resignation in April.

May 3, 2007

Amman, Jordan  ­ I AM A PALESTINIAN from Nazareth, a citizen of Israel 
and was, until last  month, a member of the Israeli parliament.

But now, in an ironic twist  reminiscent of France's Dreyfus affair ­ in 
which a French Jew was accused  of disloyalty to the state ­ the 
government of Israel is accusing me of  aiding the enemy during Israel's failed war 
against Lebanon in July.  

Israeli police apparently suspect me of passing information to a foreign  
agent and of receiving money in return. Under Israeli law, anyone ­ a  
journalist or a personal friend ­ can be defined as a "foreign agent" by the  
Israeli security apparatus. Such charges can lead to life imprisonment or even  
the death penalty. 

The allegations are ridiculous. Needless to say,  Hezbollah ­ Israel's 
enemy in Lebanon ­ has independently gathered more  security information 
about Israel than any Arab Knesset member could possibly  provide. What's more, 
unlike those in Israel's parliament who have been involved  in acts of 
violence, I have never used violence or participated in wars. My  instruments of 
persuasion, in contrast, are simply words in books, articles and  speeches.

These trumped-up charges, which I firmly reject and deny, are  only the 
latest in a series of attempts to silence me and others involved in the  struggle 
of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to live in a state of all  its 
citizens, not one that grants rights and privileges to Jews that it denies  to 
non-Jews.

When Israel was established in 1948, more than 700,000  Palestinians were 
expelled or fled in fear. My family was among the minority  that escaped that 
fate, remaining instead on the land where we had long lived.  The Israeli state, 
established exclusively for Jews, embarked immediately on  transforming us 
into foreigners in our own country.

For the first 18  years of Israeli statehood, we, as Israeli citizens, lived 
under military rule  with pass laws that controlled our every movement. We 
watched Jewish Israeli  towns spring up over destroyed Palestinian villages. 

Today we make up  20% of Israel's population. We do not drink at separate 
water fountains or sit  at the back of the bus. We vote and can serve in the 
parliament. But we face  legal, institutional and informal discrimination in all 
spheres of  life.

More than 20 Israeli laws explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews.  The Law 
of Return, for example, grants automatic citizenship to Jews from  anywhere in 
the world. Yet Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return  to the 
country they were forced to leave in 1948. The Basic Law of Human Dignity  and 
Liberty ­ Israel's "Bill of Rights" ­ defines the state as "Jewish"  
rather than a state for all its citizens. Thus Israel is more for Jews living in  
Los Angeles or Paris than it is for native Palestinians.

Israel  acknowledges itself to be a state of one particular religious group. 
Anyone  committed to democracy will readily admit that equal citizenship 
cannot exist  under such conditions.

Most of our children attend schools that are  separate but unequal. According 
to recent polls, two-thirds of Israeli Jews  would refuse to live next to an 
Arab and nearly half would not allow a  Palestinian into their home. 

I have certainly ruffled feathers in  Israel. In addition to speaking out on 
the subjects above, I have also asserted  the right of the Lebanese people, 
and of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza  Strip, to resist Israel's illegal 
military occupation. I do not see those who  fight for freedom as my enemies. 

This may discomfort Jewish Israelis,  but they cannot deny us our history and 
identity any more than we can negate the  ties that bind them to world Jewry. 
After all, it is not we, but Israeli Jews  who immigrated to this land. 
Immigrants might be asked to give up their former  identity in exchange for equal 
citizenship, but we are not  immigrants.

During my years in the Knesset, the attorney general indicted  me for voicing 
my political opinions (the charges were dropped), lobbied to have  my 
parliamentary immunity revoked and sought unsuccessfully to disqualify my  political 
party from participating in elections ­ all because I believe  Israel 
should be a state for all its citizens and because I have spoken out  against 
Israeli military occupation. Last year, Cabinet member Avigdor Lieberman  ­ an 
immigrant from Moldova ­ declared that Palestinian citizens of  Israel 
"have no place here," that we should "take our bundles and get lost."  After I 
met with a leader of the Palestinian Authority from Hamas, Lieberman  called 
for my execution.

The Israeli authorities are trying to intimidate  not just me but all 
Palestinian citizens of Israel. But we will not be  intimidated. We will not bow to 
permanent servitude in the land of our ancestors  or to being severed from our 
natural connections to the Arab world. Our  community leaders joined together 
recently to issue a blueprint for a state free  of ethnic and religious 
discrimination in all spheres. If we turn back from our  path to freedom now, we 
will consign future generations to the discrimination we  have faced for six 
decades.

Americans know from their own history of  institutional discrimination the 
tactics that have been used against civil  rights leaders. These include 
telephone bugging, police surveillance, political  delegitimization and 
criminalization of dissent through false accusations.  Israel is continuing to use these 
tactics at a time when the world no longer  tolerates such practices as 
compatible with democracy. 

Why then does the  U.S. government continue to fully support a country whose 
very identity and  institutions are based on ethnic and religious 
discrimination that victimize its  own citizens?






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