So much for the self-styled Only-Democracy-In-the-Mideast:
Mon., November 28, 2005 Cheshvan 26, 5766
The AG's campaign against Arab MKs
By Yossi Melman
According to the logic that has been guiding attorneys general (Elyakim Rubinstein and Menachem Mazuz) for several years now, Arab MKs are not allowed to do what journalists, arms dealers and exporters are allowed to do - namely, maintain contact with "an enemy country." At present, MK Azmi Bishara is being tried for visiting Syria and Lebanon, and making declarations considered to be incitement there, according to the prosecution. Moreover, Mazuz is considering filing an indictment for "entry to an enemy country" against MK Ahmed Tibi, and inviting MK Taleb al-Sana, who recently visited Damascus, to a police investigation.
The campaign being conducted by the attorney general against the Arab MKs is being carried out in the name of preserving the rule of law and of the struggle against "political and ideological criminality." In effect, the attorneys general apply these principles in a discriminatory manner. Otherwise, they should also have indicted journalists who entered those and other countries - or industrialists who maintain contacts with them.
For over 20 years, Israeli journalists have been placing their lives in danger and traveling to Arab countries in order to interview enemy leaders. Most prominent among them were Uri Avnery and Anat Saragusti, who met with then Palestine Liberation Organization chair Yasser Arafat at the height of the Lebanon War; Amnon Kapeliouk, who visited almost every Arab capital; Tamar Golan; and in recent years, Eldad Beck and Boaz Bismuth, who went all the way to Baghdad and Tehran. Although the journalists embarked on their missions with foreign passports, they carry Israeli passports as well.
If entering an enemy country is a criminal offense, they also broke the law, but nevertheless, the attorneys general decided - correctly - to consider their trips part of an important public mission. Bismuth not only was not punished, but even serves today as the Israeli ambassador to Mauritania. In other cases, some of the journalists reported their impressions not only to their readers, but to prime ministers (Yitzhak Rabin) and security officials as well. There were several journalists who helped to initiate contacts with Jewish communities in distress.
The absurdity of the decisions of the attorneys general is blatant for two more reasons: First, the law does not in effect contain a clear definition of an enemy country. The existing definition relies on emergency regulations, which forbid traveling abroad without the permission of the interior minister, and on the Law for the Prevention of Infiltration. But most of the interior ministers do not use independent judgment on this matter, and rather are manipulated like puppets of the Shin Bet security services.
Moreover, there is no one central and binding definition of the concept. The Defense Ministry has one list of countries to which is it forbidden to export weapons, and it uses even this list flexibly, for its own purposes. There were times when the heads of the Defense Ministry thought that the national interest required the export of arms to Iran of the ayatollahs. The degree of ambiguity of the definition in regard to Iran is clearly reflected in the trial of Nahum Manbar. Senior officials in the security apparatus testified at the trial that Iran is an enemy country, at the same time as then-foreign minister David Levy declared in the Knesset that Israel did not consider Iran an enemy.
The Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Trade have lists that differ from that of the Defense Ministry. A company or businessman from Israel who exports Israeli products to Lebanon or Syria, or even to Iran, will not be indicted.
The second reason is the lack of consistency in the application of the law to the Arab MKs themselves. In 1994, the Shin Bet and the attorney general allowed Arab MKs to go to Damascus on a condolence call to then-president Hafez Assad after his eldest son Basil died. After the death of Assad himself, Arab MKs were also allowed to pay a similar visit. Why is a condolence call in the wake of the death of a Syrian leader kosher, whereas a similar visit in the wake of the death of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, paid a few months ago by MK Ahmed Tibi, is not allowed? Is Syria less of an "enemy" than Lebanon?
It is safe to assume that on this issue, attorneys general sometimes include political considerations, based on narrow legal thinking and serving the need of the Shin Bet to control and to supervise.
The Arab MKs traveled to Beirut and to Damascus as public emissaries. They certainly have no less of a right than do journalists, exporters or arms dealers. They were officially invited by the governments and the parliaments of the two countries. They met in broad daylight, not under cover of darkness, with their colleagues, Lebanese and Syria MPs, and other public figures. That is exactly the purpose for which they were granted immunity.
A country that claims that it is pursuing peace not only should not punish such activity, but should welcome it and encourage any contact among the nations. The attorney general and the Shin Bet should stop the campaign against the Arab MKs, cancel the lawsuit against Azmi Bishara, and refrain in the future from indicting any MK who travels in similar circumstances, in the context of fulfilling his public mission.
haaretz.com |
