As you will recall, Arab former Knesset member Azmi Bishara was accused of having spied for Hezbollah during the war, supposedly including transmitting targeting information for Hezbollah’s rockets. He’s currently in Qatar; if he were to return to Israel he could be arrested and tried, possibly for his life.
The Balad movement [Bishara’s Arab nationalist party in the Knesset] is planning to launch an international campaign this week demanding that Israel drop the case against former MK Azmi Bishara. The party’s most senior Knesset member, Jamal Zahalka, will leave Wednesday for a five-day tour in the US to promote the issue.
Balad will call for the establishment of an international committee to investigate the way Bishara was allegedly framed, and urge Israel to cancel the probe against him.
“We are ready for any inquiry commission or international investigation of this matter,” Zahalka told Ynet. — YNet
I just bet they are. Like the International Court of Justice’s decision that Israel’s security fence violated international law, it’s hard to imagine Israel getting a fair shake from an international commission, and even more so from world opinion.
Bishara was apparently allowed to leave Israel because the government feared the media circus that would surround a trial.
It looks like there will be one anyway.
The cowardice, stupidity and general lack of concern for the national interest which have been displayed by the Israeli authorities in handling not simply the Bishara matter, but the whole matter of traitorous actions undertaken by Arab Knesset Members is a cause for great concern. Bishara violated Israeli law time and time again, and got away with it. So did Tibi, and so have the others Barakeh et al.
It nonetheless seems to me that despite our failure here Bishara as an Israeli legislator will not win the sympathy abroad that the ‘fence’issue did. Even a preliminary probing into the matter raises questions about Bishara’s integrity. And my guess is that International Army of Israel- haters will not choose to march with fervor to the sound of this particular bummer.