Re: Hint: Isra'El will no longer be an Apartheid, "Jewish" state.
Israel has arabs who serve in its Parliament. How many arab states have jewish people serving in theirs?
sfgate.com
Israeli Arab Lawmaker Suspected As Spy
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
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(05-02) 11:58 PDT PETAH TIKVA, Israel (AP) --
Ending months of secrecy, Israeli police disclosed explosive accusations of espionage and treason Wednesday against a former Arab Israeli lawmaker who has fled the country — a case that has fueled suspicions between Israel's Jews and Arabs.
Police said that while Israel and Hezbollah battled each other last summer, Azmi Bishara, a member of Israel's parliament, advised the radical Shiite group. They said he passed on sensitive information and suggested ways of causing more harm to Israel.
Bishara left the country a month ago after being grilled twice by investigators, and later resigned his parliament seat. Police said he would be arrested immediately if he returns to Israel.
In an interview from Amman, Jordan, Bishara told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he was a victim of political persecution. "It is very clear they have a plot," he said. "It's a classic manifestation of how the security establishment works in Israel when they target someone for political reasons."
Bishara has pledged to come back to face his accusers, but did not say when he would return to Israel.
Many Arabs see Bishara's case as a worrying sign of political persecution. For Israeli Jews, the charges have brought to the surface long-standing concerns that the country's Arabs are disloyal to the state.
Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population, do not identify with the state's Jewish character and have longed lagged behind Jews in government funding, employment and standard of living.
A 50-year-old Christian from Nazareth, the outspoken Bishara has antagonized many Jewish Israelis in the past by cultivating ties with some of Israel's staunchest enemies, including the leaders of Syria and Hezbollah.
A gag order in effect for months was finally lifted Wednesday, revealing the first concrete details of the investigation.
Investigators carried out months of phone taps and surveillance of Bishara, police said, and raided his homes in Jerusalem and Haifa last week, along with his office in parliament.
Amichai Shai, head of the police's international crimes unit, said Bishara offered Hezbollah officials suggestions on "how to deepen the harm to Israel" during last summer's fighting, when the guerrilla group fired nearly 4,000 rockets into Israel, and gave them advice on how Israel might respond to long-range rocket attacks.
Bishara passed on "certain military information, the publication of which was forbidden by the censor," Shai said. He declined to elaborate, but during the war, the military censor banned any publication of where rockets landed — raising the possibility that Bishara helped Hezbollah improve its aim.
"Azmi Bishara was seen by the enemy as a reliable figure in helping them understand the Israeli reality and advance the interest of the enemy," Shai said.
The allegations include assisting the enemy in wartime, contact with a foreign agent and money laundering, Shai said.
According to Shai, Bishara received envelopes with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash through a family-run money-changing business in east Jerusalem, and three members of the family were arrested and confessed. The money came from Jordan, but it was not clear where it originated, he said. Police did not offer evidence of a link between Bishara's alleged ties to Hezbollah and the money he received.
Bishara told the AP that he was not privy to any sensitive information. He said he spoke to "friends" during the war, sharing only information reported in the Israeli media.
"What is said in the media and then repeated on the phone in conversation with friends constitutes to passing information (to the enemy) now?" he said.
He called the financial allegations a "lie."
Under Israeli law, the crime of treason is punishable by life imprisonment or even death. But Israel has carried out its death penalty only once, in the case of the Nazi Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann in 1962. |
