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Hands
off Azmi! The Dangerous Politics of "A State
for All Its Citizens"
by Toufic
Haddad
Monthly
Review Magazine
18/04/07
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/haddad180407.html
Murmurings of a political tsunami are emerging with regards to
Israel's
policies towards the "non-Jewish" citizens of the "Jewish
democratic state." Azmi Bishara,
perhaps the most prominent political leader of the Palestinian Arab citizens
of Israel, was in the
midst of engaging in his routine activities of propagating the rights of the
Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel
in various Arab and international fora, when leaks
began to circulate in the Israeli media. It was rumored that the
Israeli political establishment was drawing up a list of major charges
against him during his absence from the country, and that he would be served
with them upon his return, or in coming days. Although Bishara has faced and survived repeated previous attacks
against him and the National Democratic Assembly
(NDA) -- the political party he leads -- the nature of the new charges appear
to be so severe that they may force Bishara into
the precarious position of having to choose between serving a long jail
sentence and being forced into political exile. Because Bishara has major health issues and was the recipient of
a kidney transplant from his brother, serving an extended Israeli jail
sentence would be akin to a death sentence for him. At the same time,
his political exile would severely set back the movement he leads for
advancing the legitimate demands of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel.
The Israeli media has been served a gag order preventing open
discussion as to the nature of the charges themselves. But according to
an interview Bishara conducted on 12 April with the Ashams radio station in Nazareth,
the charges far surpass anything raised against him previously, and appear to
revolve around his conduct during the Israeli war against Lebanon in July/August
2006.
Bishara survived several attempts to
suppress him previously, including charges that he was undermining the
"Jewish nature of the state," "supporting terrorism," and
arranging contacts with "enemy states." In all cases, Bishara was able to successfully defend himself and have
the charges dropped. But the Israeli military and secret services
always promised to get him, including a remarkably frank letter recently
sent from the Israeli Prime Minister's office to an NDA paper, declaring they
would combat the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm Israel's
"Jewish or democratic character," even if that activity was carried
out through legal means.
Irrespective of the details of the current unpublished
charges, the nature of the latest prosecution against Bishara
is entirely politically motivated. The Israeli political establishment
has identified Bishara as enemy number one for
years now, and repeatedly incited against him and his movement. Their
"sin" has been nothing more and nothing less than the content of
their political demands. Ever since NDA raised the slogan that Israel
should be defined as "a state of its citizens" -- as opposed to
"the state of the Jewish people throughout the world," as Israel is
currently defined -- the Israeli establishment has not wavered from
attempting to crush it, to prevent the "infectious" advancement of
this political line within the Palestinian Arab citizenry and leadership, and
also internationally.
Israel has given such strategic significance
to this campaign because it understands only too well that the NDA has placed
its finger upon the very contradiction that Zionism cannot resolve. And
it has done so not through armed struggle, or calling for "throwing Jews
into the sea," but through practicing their democratic civil rights to
institution building, party building, and eloquent and impassioned liberal
humanist and democratic discourse. Moreover, NDA demands have not only
called for full equality of the Palestinian Arab citizenry, but have also included
the demand for the state to recognize its Arab citizens as a national
minority living in its homeland. This is intolerable for Zionism
because it subverts the current Zionist narrative of exclusive Jewish rights
to historical Palestine, and affirms that Palestinians were not just
"non-Jews" living in Eretz Yisrael before it was "redeemed," but were a people who
were repeatedly and systematically forced off their land throughout the years
to create the "Jewish democratic state" in the first place.
NDA's discourse has been so successful
within the Palestinian public sphere that it has been adopted by virtually
all major Arab political parties and institutions of civil society.
This was recently manifested in the publication of four documents prepared by
the major Arab political organs in Israel (including Knesset members, NGOs,
and the local Arab leadership, known as the Follow-Up Committee), which
articulate demands calling for the full democratization of the state.
NDA's work thus has essentially laid the
ground for a major civil rights struggle inside Israel that poses a
"threat" to political Zionism which it cannot emerge from
unscathed. Either Israel
would be forced to expose its explicit commitment to a "Jewish
state," or it would have to implement full equality before the law and
the recognition of Palestinians as a national minority with respective
cultural rights, and most importantly, land rights. It cannot have
both. Nor can it continue to hide from the reality that it is practicing
forms of institutional apartheid, not only in the 1967
Occupied Territories,
but also within the pre-1967 borders of the state.
Israel's choice of timing is also not
inconsequential. It understands that the longer it is unable to stem
these political tides both locally and internationally, the worse its
strategic positioning will be. Israel essentially fears that if
it does not try and root out these trends now, Zionism will increasingly
follow the historical path of South African Apartheid. Israel's brutal
suppression of the Al Aqsa Intifada (killing more
than 4,000 Palestinians and displacing thousands others); its crackdown upon
the uprising of the Palestinian citizens of Israel in the first weeks of the
Intifada, killing 13 Arab citizens; the building of the Apartheid Wall in the
West Bank; the war Israel launched against Lebanon last summer; and Israel's
role in the US war and occupation of Iraq have all begun to raise serious
questions as to the role Israel plays in the Middle East, and the nature of
the state itself.
Progressive analysts as well as international forces in
solidarity with the Palestinian people have been slow to recognize that the
plight and oppression of 1948 Palestinians is not an isolated "internal
Israeli matter" but rather the extension of its policies against the
Palestinian people overall. Upon the eruption of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, Israel led a systematic
campaign against the entire Palestinian national movement and people, and
made great advances in destroying the PLO and Palestinian Authority, killed
or imprisoned its major political leaders, and actively worked to erode the
fabric of Palestinian social and economic well being -- essentially
attempting to extirpate their rootedness to their
land. The attacks against NDA (as well as other Arab political leaders
in Israel,
particularly the Islamic movement, led by Sheikh Raed
Salah) must therefore be seen within this context.
Moreover these trends gain added significance in the context
of two other developments lurking on the horizon. One is what a
military strike against Iran
might facilitate as a smokescreen for advancing Israeli policies vis-à-vis
the Palestinian community inside Israel. Would Israeli
prosecution of Azmi Bishara
raise many eyebrows internationally if the Middle East is yet more thoroughly
destabilized in the wake of a US (US/Israel?) attack against Iran?
Second, and possibly simultaneously with this first scenario,
is the question of Israel's
remarkably open preparations for a massive assault against the Palestinian
national movement in Gaza.
The new unity government recently formed there represents, in Israel's
opinion, an intolerable situation because the Palestinians may be able to
reconstitute their fragmented political project, end the international
boycott against them, and wage a more sustained and organized resistance
campaign which could attract serious forces of support to the international
campaign to end the occupation. As the tides of domestic support for
the US occupation of Iraq wane, and as the accompanying tides of
intolerance towards occupation rise, Israel
is only too conscious that this trend does not bode well for its occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As
far as Israel
is concerned, therefore, the window is closing upon their political future,
and it is imperative for the future of political Zionism to push the window
back open.
Azmi Bishara's
head is therefore on the chopping block with all the
political and moral signification this has for the future of the Palestinian
community inside Israel.
Now is the time to raise awareness of these issues and demand "Hands off
Azmi!" and support for the Palestinian
citizen's legitimate demand for "A State of All Its Citizens"
Toufic Haddad is the co-editor (with Tikva Honig-Parnass) of Between
the Lines: Readings in Israel, the Palestinians and the
U.S War Against Terror, forthcoming from Haymarket
Books (Summer 2007). The book contains five essays and
interviews with Azmi Bishara,
head of the National Democratic Assembly -- Tajamu'/
Balad. He can be reached at tawfiq_haddad@yahoo.com
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