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December 27, 2002/Tevet 22 5763, Vol. 55, No. 18
Israeli Arabs say move to ban party unfair
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NAZARETH - Nearly two years ago, in Israel's last elections, members of Azmi Beshara's Balad Party spearheaded the public campaign among Israel's Arab citizens to boycott the elections.
Now Balad has taken a U-turn: It is launching an international campaign against Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein's demand to ban the party from running in the upcoming general elections.
Rubinstein's request to the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Balad relies on a recent amendment to the Basic Law: The Knesset banning parties that negate "Israel's existence as a Jewish state and express support for the armed struggle against Israel."
The Central Elections Committee will have to define the thin line between the political rights of the Arab population and the possible challenge to the very existence of the state. In other words, it will have to decide how Arab an Arab party can be.
Rubinstein came to the elections committee with a thick portfolio of documents designed to prove that "Balad is putting on a mask."
In other words, the party, which claims to be a legitimate political organ of Israel's Arabs, actually is a tool in the effort to destroy Israel as a Jewish state, Rubinstein claims.
The main points Rubinstein raised:
- On June 2001, at a rally in Damascus, Beshara called for "a united Arab stand to expand the resistance against Israel."
- In September 2000, even before the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, Beshara met with Hamas representatives in Hebron and told them that as a member of the Knesset he was a tool in the Arab struggle against Israel. He allegedly told them that he had urged Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to form a united Palestinian front and unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, a move that Israel's Arab citizens would endorse.
- Balad has a "hidden agenda" that calls for the creation of a secular state in place of the Jewish state. Only a minority of Israeli Jews - those who lived in Palestine before 1948, and their descendants - would be allowed to live there.
Beshara has denounced the charges against him as "a lie and a libel."
Beshara, 46, undoubtedly is the No. 1 ideologue in the Israeli Arab political arena. Despite his limited political power, his call for "a state of all its citizens" - which would strip Israel of its Jewish nature - has had a tremendous impact on the political thinking of Israel's Arab population, and has been adopted by the other major Israeli Arab parties.
Although his faction holds just one seat in the Knesset, Beshara has worked hard to establish himself as the prime alternative to the growing influence of the Islamic Movement in Israeli Arab politics.
Recent polls show that he is still far from reaching that goal, because Beshara may be more radical than his voters.
The survey also showed that Israeli Arabs would not boycott the Jan. 28 elections, as they did in February 2001. Some 71 percent plan to vote, and a quarter of those would vote for Jewish parties.
The survey also found a reversal of the trend of "Palestinization" among Israeli Arabs. Nearly 45 percent identified themselves not as Palestinians but primarily as Israeli Arabs, reversing a trend that had seen Arabs' self-identification as Israelis drop from 54 percent in 1995 to 34 percent in early 2001.
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