Press Releases

Racism, Refugees and Apartheid in Israel: Toward the Exclusion of Palestinian Parliamentarians in Israel?

BADIL Resource Center
04 January 2003
For Immediate Release


In a few days Israel’s High Court is scheduled to take a decision which will re-define the framework of political relations between Israel’s Jewish majority and its Palestinian minority for years to come. By Thursday, 9 January the court will have to decide if the National Democratic Assembly (BALAD) headed by Azmi Bishara – and Azmi Bishara himself – are to be barred from participation in Israel’s 28 January parliamentary elections on grounds of alleged reasons of ‘state security.’ The court will have to take a stand on whether program and actions of BALAD and MK Azmi Bishara are part of the legitimate political debate in the ‘Jewish and democratic state of Israel,’ or to be banned from parliamentary discourse.

The Court's decision will be crucial, because BALAD and Azmi Bishara are not alone. In addition to the hearing of MK Bishara's case on Tuesday 7 January, a similar hearing is scheduled for the same day to decide about the parliamentary future of MK Ahmad Tibi (TA'AL/Hadash). Moreover, the Court decision will be a benchmark in the ferocious political campaign against non-conform Palestinian parliamentarians and their lists. The current campaign, spearheaded by Israel’s right-wing members of Knesset and the Attorney General, Elyakim Rubinstein, already resulted in decisions by the Central Elections Committee last week to cancel BALAD, Bishara and Tibi from participation in the upcoming elections. It must be understood in the broader context of a series of policies adopted by the Israeli government, in order to further isolate and marginalize the Palestinian citizens of the state, such as: suspension of family reunification for Palestinian citizens marrying non-resident Palestinian spouses; consideration of new laws to further restrict Palestinian access to land; the reactivation of the Council for Demography to study mechanisms to increase the Jewish population relative to the Palestinian population; establishment of new Jewish settlements to alter the demography in the Galilee and Naqab; revocation of citizenship; land confiscation and house demolitions; and refusal to address the rights of internally displaced Palestinians. Israel’s profiling of the entire Palestinian population has given rise to broad public debate about population transfer and forceful expulsion (i.e., ethnic cleansing). It also explains the ease with which the same Central Election Committee approved of the candidacy in the upcoming elections, of Baruch Marzel, a member of the outlawed right-wing Kach movement.

The Issue at Stake: What Democracy in the ‘Jewish and Democratic State’?

As in the past, so also in the case of BALAD and Azmi Bishara, Israeli political and legal arguments are framed in the language of ‘national security,’ while the primary motivation behind them is the over-riding political imperative to maintain Israel as a ‘Jewish state.’ Following an earlier abortive attempt to indict Azmi Bishara for his role in organizing trips for elderly Palestinians to Syria to see relatives they have not seen for 50 years – the case is still pending in a Nazareth court – the Central Election Committee provided a second opportunity. According to amendments recently passed by the Knesset, a list or a particular candidate can be banned on the grounds that they ‘reject the existence of Israel as a Jewish democratic state’ or ‘support armed struggle of a hostile state or terrorist organization against the state of Israel.’ Israel’s Attorney General, Elyakim Rubinstein, went at great length to proof both and his argument quotes extensively from ‘secret evidence’ provided by an Israeli intelligence agent.

BALAD’s statement in response to the Attorney General argues convincingly that all ‘secret evidence’ refers to statements made in public meetings. Allegations of support of armed struggle and suicide bombings are based on wrong interpretations by the intelligence agent and can easily be verified with the help of public present at these meetings. Evidence of secret meetings or activities with ‘hostile states or terrorist organizations’ is not included in the Attorney General’s argument. Moreover, the lawyer’s of Adalah representing the case of BALAD and Azmi Bishara criticize the fact that Rubinstein included evidence that served as the grounds for removing Bishara’s immunity and launching his earlier trial before the amendments to the Election Law were passed. At the same time, BALAD’s response re-affirms its support of the Palestinian people’s right to resist occupation, a right enshrined in international law.

The real challenge for the Supreme Court, however, will lie in the question of whether BALAD’s programmatic call for transforming Israel into ‘a state of all its citizens,’ where Jews and Palestinians, including internally displaced and refugees, can live on the basis of equal civil and national rights, is a legitimate issue for Israel’s parliamentary debate. Israel’s judges will be called upon to re-examine critically misleading public notions and ‘secret evidence,’ which hold that 'BALAD’s open support for Palestinian refugees’ right of return to Israel and a bi-national state are evidence of the fact that BALAD aims not only to cancel the Jewish character of the state, but to abolish the state and to transform the Jewish public into a minority controlled by an Arab majority in the state of Palestine.’

The judges’ verdict will set a milestone for future Jewish-Palestinian relations in Israel. Growing criticism, among a sector of the Israeli public and media, of the politically biased decisions issued by the Central Election Committee, recommendations against the exclusion of the Palestinian lists and parliamentarians by the head of the Election Committee, judge Michael Heshin, as well as petitions and calls for the cancellation of the Election Committee's decision and an open and inclusive debate about democracy in Israel give rise to some hope that yet another step towards political segregation and apartheid can be avoided.


For additional information and calls for action, see:
http://balad.org
http://azmibishar.info
http://adalah.org