Why
Israel Is After Me
By Azmi Bishara
04 May, 2007
The
Los Angeles Times
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?
Azmi Bishara was a member
of the Knesset until his resignation in April.
© 2007 The Los Angeles
Times
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