Azmi Bishara, Wanted, for crimes against the state

For many years, Azmi Bishara has been one of the most prominent voices representing the 1.5 million Arabs living in Israel. But now he is a fugitive, facing some of the most serious allegations ever made against an Israeli MP. What happened? In a rare interview, he talks to Rory McCarthy

The Guardian

".....Hizbullah, he wrote, was a resistance movement, fighting a war brought on by an Israeli government led by "mediocrities, cowards and opportunists" who were responsible for "barbaric vandalism and the deliberate targeting of civilians"......

These are some of the most serious allegations ever levelled against an Israeli MP and effectively mean that Bishara must either remain in exile abroad, or return to face the prospect of a lengthy jail sentence, or worse. But Bishara is also the most prominent advocate of Arab political rights within Israel, and the investigation has exposed a widening rift in Israeli society between the Jewish majority and the 20% Palestinian minority......

"The symbolic action of bringing me to trial and condemning me - they want it. I know they want it," he says, in a rare interview with the Guardian. "I'm not going to let them succeed; I'm always two steps ahead."......

Bishara denies the accusations brought against him, and argues that the real reason for the investigation is not his actions during the Lebanon war but his long-held and widely published call for a fundamental change to the nature of the Israeli state: his belief that the country should no longer be a Jewish state but must protect Arab rights and become a "state for all its citizens". "They want to condemn the whole political ideology and put it as if it's a cover for another kind of activity, which is not true," he says......

However, in recent months, that has begun to change. For a start, racism against Arabs in Israel is rising, according to at least one recent poll. In a survey for the Centre Against Racism, a poll of Jewish Israelis found that more than half believed it was treason for a Jewish woman to marry an Arab man; 40% said Arabs should no longer have the right to vote in parliamentary elections; and 75% opposed apartment blocks being shared by Jews and Arabs.

.....Adalah, a human rights group, issued a draft constitution that said Israel should be defined not as a Jewish state but as a "democratic, bilingual and multicultural state". It called for an end to the Law of Return, which gives automatic citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent, and it called on Israel to "recognise its responsibility for past injustices suffered by the Palestinian people".

....Avraham Burg, a Jewish former speaker of the Knesset and former chair of the Jewish Agency, delivered his own denunciation of Israel's structure. "It can't work any more," he said. "To define the state of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It's dynamite." Burg too called for a change to the Law of Return and was highly critical of what he called Israel's "confrontational Zionism".....

The Law of Return, he argues, is a fundamental problem, as is the idea of a state both Jewish and democratic. "The problem with this state is that it cannot grant equality. It cannot separate religion and state, and it will always have an ideological mission that will keep it from integrating in the region or serving its citizens." He describes Israel as a "colonial democracy"......

There has been a harsh reaction to this ideological challenge. Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet, was reported earlier this year as warning that a radicalisation of Israel's Arab minority was a "strategic threat to the state's existence". In March, a rightwing MP introduced a bill in the Knesset that would in future require all MPs to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state and to its national anthem and flag......

Bishara is dismissive of those who argue that Arabs already have sufficient rights within Israel - notably citizenship, the right to vote and the right to speak out. These are no more than concessions, he says. "You took the land and gave me freedom of speech," he says. "Who's winning here? Let's revise the deal. Take your freedom of speech and give me back Palestine. How about that?"....."