Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
"NAZARETH // Niveen Abu Rahmoun appears an unlikely target for the interest of Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet. The quietly spoken 26-year-old from the village of Reine, near Nazareth, is a civics teacher in a local high school......
Ms Abu Rahmoun is a senior activist in the National Democratic Assembly, one of the main parties representing Israel’s 1.2 million Palestinian citizens. The party is fully registered and currently has three representatives sitting in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
But it is also led by Azmi Bishara, a Knesset member himself until last year when he was forced into exile in Jordan accused by the Shin Bet of being a “foreign agent” on behalf of Hizbollah during the 2006 Lebanon war.
Though no evidence has yet been produced to support Shin Bet’s claims, the party fears Mr Bishara would be subjected to a secret trial on treason charges if he returned and would be denied the chance to defend himself properly. Several Israeli commentators have ridiculed the idea that Mr Bishara was ever in a position to help Hizbollah......
The Shin Bet tried a different approach with Ms Abu Rahmoun, who works to recruit young people to the party. She was warned by an official known as “Karmi” to stop her youth meetings. “Karmi told me he had a list of people who had once been ‘quiet’ but who were now politically active because of me,” she said. “Then he said he was concerned for my welfare and that I might lose my reputation if I carried on working with the party.”.....
The party’s allegations against the secret police are apparently confirmed by a strange correspondence between Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet, and human rights groups over the past 18 months. In a series of letters, Mr Diskin has warned that the secret police regard it as their job to “thwart the subversive activity of entities seeking to harm the character of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, even if their activity is conducted through democratic means”.......
There is a long history to the Shin Bet’s pursuit of Mr Bishara, who began popularising the idea of a “state of all its citizens” more than a decade ago. He has twice been put on trial by state prosecutors, though both cases ended in his favour; he has been warned by a state commission of inquiry; and he was banned from running in the 2006 general election, though the decision was narrowly overturned on appeal to the courts......
Mr Fattah also argued that the threats to his party’s members are evidence of a wider campaign being organised by the Shin Bet and sections of the Knesset to silence all dissent from the country’s Palestinian citizens and their elected representatives.
Last month, the Knesset passed a law giving the courts sweeping powers to revoke the citizenship of anyone suspected of a “breach of trust” with the state, including by living in any of several Arab states. Mr Bishara is expected to be an early victim of the legislation."
"NAZARETH // Niveen Abu Rahmoun appears an unlikely target for the interest of Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet. The quietly spoken 26-year-old from the village of Reine, near Nazareth, is a civics teacher in a local high school......
Ms Abu Rahmoun is a senior activist in the National Democratic Assembly, one of the main parties representing Israel’s 1.2 million Palestinian citizens. The party is fully registered and currently has three representatives sitting in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
But it is also led by Azmi Bishara, a Knesset member himself until last year when he was forced into exile in Jordan accused by the Shin Bet of being a “foreign agent” on behalf of Hizbollah during the 2006 Lebanon war.
Though no evidence has yet been produced to support Shin Bet’s claims, the party fears Mr Bishara would be subjected to a secret trial on treason charges if he returned and would be denied the chance to defend himself properly. Several Israeli commentators have ridiculed the idea that Mr Bishara was ever in a position to help Hizbollah......
The Shin Bet tried a different approach with Ms Abu Rahmoun, who works to recruit young people to the party. She was warned by an official known as “Karmi” to stop her youth meetings. “Karmi told me he had a list of people who had once been ‘quiet’ but who were now politically active because of me,” she said. “Then he said he was concerned for my welfare and that I might lose my reputation if I carried on working with the party.”.....
The party’s allegations against the secret police are apparently confirmed by a strange correspondence between Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet, and human rights groups over the past 18 months. In a series of letters, Mr Diskin has warned that the secret police regard it as their job to “thwart the subversive activity of entities seeking to harm the character of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, even if their activity is conducted through democratic means”.......
There is a long history to the Shin Bet’s pursuit of Mr Bishara, who began popularising the idea of a “state of all its citizens” more than a decade ago. He has twice been put on trial by state prosecutors, though both cases ended in his favour; he has been warned by a state commission of inquiry; and he was banned from running in the 2006 general election, though the decision was narrowly overturned on appeal to the courts......
Mr Fattah also argued that the threats to his party’s members are evidence of a wider campaign being organised by the Shin Bet and sections of the Knesset to silence all dissent from the country’s Palestinian citizens and their elected representatives.
Last month, the Knesset passed a law giving the courts sweeping powers to revoke the citizenship of anyone suspected of a “breach of trust” with the state, including by living in any of several Arab states. Mr Bishara is expected to be an early victim of the legislation."
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