8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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Gag orders
The Knesset yesterday voted to strip its prominent Palestinian member, Azmi Bishara, of his immunity from prosecution. Bishara, known for his outspokenness about Israeli racism, will face charges of making anti-Israel statements and organising trips to Syria for elderly Palestinians to visit their families, forced into exile after Israel's creation in 1948.The measure has been applied to Israeli members of Knesset facing corruption charges, but this may be the first time a country labelling itself a democracy strips a member of his immunity simply because the state does not like his political views.
A million Palestinians refused to flee their homeland after 1948 and were forced to accept Israeli nationality. Bishara is one of them. He and a handful of others in the Knesset have been vehement in demanding equal rights for their constituencies. They are also a constant reminder that Israel's claims of democracy are false. Israel is an occupying state and, like all occupiers, does not tolerate those who remind it of the racism inherent in its very roots. Yet while its Jewish citizens enjoy all the benefits of citizenship -- housing, education, health, freedom of expression -- Palestinians who hold Israeli passports are treated as second-class citizens and seen as terrorists. Ahmed Tibi, another Palestinian MK, summed up the situation thus: "It is true that Israel is a democratic Jewish state: democratic for the Jews, and against the Arabs."
Israel must realise that no law can prevent people like Bishara from supporting Palestinians' right to freedom from occupation. Bishara, who is Christian, supports the right of the Palestinian people to an independent, sovereign state; but he has never condoned acts of violence against civilians. Israel, however, is now telling its Palestinian citizens that they are not even allowed to advocate the Palestinian cause.
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