28 June - 4 July 2001
Issue No.540
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 June - 4 July 2001 Issue No.540 |
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Expanding the realm of resistance
The furore whipped up in Israel by Azmi Bishara's speech in Syria was caused less by what was said than by where, to whom and when it was said. Graham Usher reports from Jerusalem
On 11 June the Palestinian politician and Member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara, made a speech commemorating the first anniversary of the death of Hafez Al-Assad -- and all hell broke loose in Israel.
The casus belli were remarks that, ironically, are as much a critique of the present state of Arab incapacity as they are a denunciation of the present Israeli government. Addressing an audience that included Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, Bishara said:
"The Israeli government is trying to shrink the realm [of resistance] by putting forth a choice: either accept Israeli dictates or face a full-scale war. Thus it is impossible to continue with a third way -- that of resistance -- without expanding this realm once again so that people can struggle and resist. Nor is it possible to expand this realm without a unified and internationally effective Arab political position. This is precisely the time for such a stance."
The comments in themselves were hardly novel -- Bishara has said similar things on countless previous occasions, including in Israel. The charge was produced rather by where they were uttered -- Syria, which in the dominant Israeli discourse has again become "an enemy state" -- to whom they were addressed and, critically, when they were made.
Nine months into the Palestinian Intifada -- and nine months after that Intifada also spread among Israel's one million or so Palestinian citizens -- Israeli political culture has acquired a "dangerous racist atmosphere which could affect all of us," warned Bishara in Syria. Just how dangerous was exposed by the ferocious reaction in Israel to his comments.
Immediately labelled "Bishara's war speech," the Israeli press ran headlines claiming that Bishara had called on Palestinians to engage in "armed struggle." Israeli MKs called for his citizenship to be revoked, that his Balad movement be outlawed as a "terrorist organisation" and that he immediately stand trial for "treason and other crimes like assisting the enemy during war."
Some Israeli politicians maintained even a trial would be too much of a sop. "In any normal country, they'd put him before a firing squad," was the view of the far-right Herut MK, Michael Kleiner.
Such populism soon received its official sanction, with Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein deciding on 13 June to open a police investigation into Bishara's comments, raising the spectre of criminal charges for incitement, treason and "contact with foreign agents". The punishment for treason in Israel is death.
On his return to Israel on 18 June, Bishara said he would have no truck with any police investigation since its "scheduling does not suit me." Rather he launched a counter-charge backed by a petition of some 500 Arab and Jewish signatories supporting his freedom of speech and defending his comments in an open letter to Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg on 20 June.
He said he viewed the incitement against him as a "continuation of a process in Israel aimed at de- legitimising the Arab public and its leadership." He reiterated his opposition to Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights and reaffirmed that "resistance to occupation is legitimate, both morally and according to international law." Finally, he "recognised the legitimacy of the state of Israel by virtue of the right of self-determination to the Jewish-Israeli collective that has been consolidated."
But, he added, "I am not an Israeli patriot. I am a Palestinian, a member of a nation whose tragedy did not end in 1948. So do not ask me to rejoice in Israel's victories on the battlefield or celebrate Independence Day." Moreover, "you will be hard pressed to find Arab citizens [of Israel] who adopts a position that differs from mine."
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