|
Arab Israeli MK Goes on Trial Over Syria Trips
NAZARETH, Israel, Dec. 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Azmi Bishara, a prominent Arab member of the Knesset, went on trial Monday for organizing trips to Syria, news agencies reported.
Dozens of Bishara supporters were at the court in Israel's largest Arab town of Nazareth for the opening of the trial, just a month after the MP's parliamentary immunity was lifted by Israel, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A one-time candidate for prime minister, Bishara has been charged with organizing what were described as "illegal" trips for Arab Israelis to Syria, and with "incitement" over remarks he made in Syria backing "popular resistance" against Israel.
Bishara, 45, organized a trip in November 2000 for Arab Israeli families wanting to reconnect with relatives who had sought refuge in Syria.
"All I did was to help people meet their families," Bishara, the sole MK from the Balad nationalist Arab party, told journalists. "That's not a crime but a humanitarian act."
His defense team entered a plea of not guilty.
"The accusations against him have no basis in law," said lawyer Hassan Jabarin, according to AFP.
Bishara's trial was adjourned for a month. He is to be tried for the incitement charge at another court.
Israelis require approval of the authorities to visit Syria, officially at war with the Jewish state since its creation on Arab land in 1948. Arab Israelis have defied the ban.
Bishara is Christian and a university professor from Galilee, who has served in the Knesset since his election in 1996 on the communist list, before switching to the Balad party.
Bishara, an Israeli lawmaker of Palestinian descent, was charged by the Israeli government with incitement to violence, in connection with speeches he delivered in Syria and at home, praising Lebanese resistance for the Israeli army's withdrawal from its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon.
Bishara proclaimed his innocence and had vowed to prove it in court.
"Lebanon, the weakest of the Arab countries, has presented a tiny model from which ... we can draw the conclusions necessary for success and victory," Bishara said in a speech to Arab Israelis in May. "Hizbollah has won, and for the first time … we have known the taste of victory."
The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli District Prosecutor Moshe Lador accused Bishara of "expressing verbal praise, sympathy and calls for support and aid" to the Lebanese resistance movement, Hizbollah.
According to the allegations, Bishara "identified with the Hizbollah organization" and called for adopting its methods in the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli military occupation.
"On these occasions," wrote Lador, as quoted by the Post, "the accused expressed before his listeners and via the media to the broad public in Israel and beyond the following positions, exhortations, and calls.
"Regarding the members of the Hizbollah, whom he called 'south Lebanese resistance fighters,' he praised them for their demonstrations of consistency and bravery, in his words - which led, in his view, to the defeat of Israel and the end of its control in southern Lebanon."
Bishara was accused of describing "what he regarded as the victory of Hizbollah over Israel in southern Lebanon." He is also alleged to have mentioned Hizbollah's "right to take pride in its achievement," the paper continued.
At a conference of Arab leaders in Syria in June, Bishara expressed admiration for Hizbollah and praised Syria for supporting the Lebanese group during its war against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.
The Israeli indictments follow the removal of Bishara's parliamentary immunity last week. It was the first time ever an Israeli legislator was stripped of his immunity for stating his opinions.
Bishara said his statements in Syria were pacifist and that he has never in his life advocated violence.
The charges against the Arab-Israeli lawmaker are an Israeli government attempt to intimidate the Arab population and limit their participation in Israeli politics, Bishara told a news conference earlier in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
"They are trying to terrify Arab Israelis by attacking one of their leaders," he said.
Arab Israelis - Palestinians who stayed in Israel after its creation - number around one million people, or 18.6 percent of the population of 6.4 million.
Bishara and two of his parliamentary aides, Mussa Diab and Ashraf Kursam, were also charged with organizing trips to Syria for some 800 Israeli Arabs who did not have Interior Ministry permission to visit a "hostile country", the
Post reported.
The charge of incitement carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail. The maximum jail term for organizing the visits to an enemy country is one year.
|
