Israel Matzav

Is ('Israeli Arab' MK) Azmi Bishara a Syrian/Hezbullah spy?

Since the end of last week, there has been a strange story floating around Israel that variously had 'Israeli Arab' MK Azmi Bishara defecting to or seeking asylum in Jordan or Syria with all kinds of speculation as to why. There is a gag order on the story here in Israel, but I now have it from three sources (which I will disclose in this post) that Bishara has been spying on behalf of Syria and Hezbullah, and that Israeli intelligence has caught on to him. That is why he apparently left the country suddenly at the end of last week, and that is why he has avoided returning (although he apparently sent back his family).

Even before this incident, Bishara was known for his visits to Syria and his traitorous behavior there:

"We are Syria's ally," Balad chairman MK Azmi Bishara told the Syrian news agency upon his arrival in Damascus on Friday.

Bishara, who joined other members of the Balad Knesset faction, expressed his support for Syria and for the country's struggle to free "occupied Arab land." He also praised Syria's support for "resistance to the occupation."

Bishara has also made statements in support of Hezbullah.

But Debbie Schlussel reports this evening that Bishara did more than visit and make statements of support:

Now, Bishara and his entire family have fled Israel. Why? Well, because he was spying for Syria and Hezbollah, and--finally--Israel was about to charge and prosecute him.

According to an English translation of Arab media source, Al-Moheet, linked by Shawarma Mayor, Russian intelligence sources warned Bishara that Israeli intelligence had discovered his status as a spy for Syria and Hezbollah and urged him to flee Israel, since the country was about to take away his diplomatic immunity and ban him from travelling outside of the country.

While it's cause for celebration that Bishara is gone from the State of Israel, he will soon be replaced by another Israeli Arab who is equally hateful of the Israel and who will make similar calls--without consequence--for terrorists to attack his fellow citizens. Although much of his constituency are Israeli Arab Muslims and he deals in their currency of hate, Eliyaho of Emet m'Tziyon/Zion Truth informs me Bishara is a Christian Arab.

So, are Arabs and Muslims loyal citizens of their country of choice . . . or are they friendly foes, just waiting until they reach critical mass--and spying to help the enemy until then?

Bishara aside, we've had far too many examples of the latter.

Debbie links three sources: Schwarma Mayor, Al-Moheet and Zion Truth. Debbie herself is my first and Al-Moheet is the second. The third is DEBKAfile:

MK Awad Abd al-Fatah, secretary-general of Beshara’s faction, Balad, the Arab National Party, claimed in an interview to Quds Press that the Shin Bet is building a dossier against Beshara accusing him of spying for Syria and Hizballah in the 2006 Lebanon War.

This is the first hint of the purported charge which caused the lawmaker to abscond with his family. Al-Fatah said there was no substance to this suspicion. He accused the Shin Beit of trumping up a charge, after failing to compromise Balad on the grounds of its objective to change “the Jewish nature of the Hebrew state.” The Israeli-Arab Knesset member also claimed Israel’s security service’s was determined to disrupt the Israeli Arab faction’s ties with the Arab world.

Azmi Beshara has caused more harm to Jewish-Arab relations than anyone else, said opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu Tuesday, April 10.

The sooner he quits the Knesset, the better for Israel at large, especially the Arab community, said Netanyahu. Arab sources reported Tuesday that the absentee politician had asked Qatar for asylum after he was offered a job as commentator for the local Al Jazeera Arabic TV. That is only one of the rumors circulating on his whereabouts.

...

DEBKAfile’s sources add that the apparent weakness Israel displayed in the Lebanon war of last summer encouraged Azmi Beshara to believe he could get away with heinous offences against state security, and also emboldened major Israeli Arab organizations to launch a strong separatist bid for a revision of the Jewish state’s structure and character, so as to satisfy their national aspirations as a part of the pan-Arab community.

The problem is that Bishara is probably not the only 'Israeli-Arab' Knesset member to spy for an Arab country or terrorist organization. A second problem is that 'Israeli-Arabs' continue to elect irredentists like Bishara to the Knesset.

Bishara never equivocated about his loyalties, which invariably lay with Israel's foes. After the IDF's retreat from Lebanon in 2000, he crowed at an Umm el-Fahm rally: "Hizbullah won and for the first time since 1967 we taste victory. Hizbullah is justly proud of its achievement in humiliating Israel."

He later repeated the same sentiments in Damascus, leading the Knesset to lift his parliamentary immunity, facilitating an indictment for supporting terrorist organizations. The Supreme Court, however, let Bishara off the legal hook. Likewise, in 2003, the Court overturned a Central Election Committee decision to disqualify Balad from the Knesset race.

Despite such tolerance, Bishara hectored in Beirut: "We don't want your [Israel's] democracy. Give us Palestine."

It's hard to imagine any democracy which would abide similar outright disloyalty, least of all a country at war and facing such unparalleled existential threats as Israel.

Even Britain's MP George Galloway's apologetics for Islamic terrorism haven't reached the point of advocating the UK's destruction. Israel, incomparably more vulnerable than any western democracy, has thus far endured what no other society would stand for.

The end - one way or the other - of Bishara's galling misuse of parliamentary immunity is long overdue. This isn't only in the interest of the exasperatingly tested broadmindedness of Israel's Jews. It's exceedingly more so in the interest of Israeli Arabs, the primary victims of Bishara's in-your-face anti-Israel impudence.

Each of his tirades only further serves to stigmatize Israel's Arab citizens as fifth columnists. Bishara's support for Hizbullah during and after last summer's war exacerbated such suspicions by the Jewish majority. To be sure, Bishara isn't alone, as amply evinced by position papers and proposed "constitutions," composed by a gamut of Israeli-Arab organizations, essentially demanding that Israel cease existing as a Jewish state.

Nevertheless, Bishara is a potent symbol of a radicalizing politician, who deliberately fans the flames, whips up discord and jeopardizes Israel's fragile intercommunal equilibrium. His radicalized electorate is in turn likely to vote for ever-more extreme representatives, thereby triggering a truly vicious cycle.

The sooner this cycle is broken, the better Israeli Arabs would fare. The sooner they recognize that cynical politicians unconscionably make political capital at their expense, while doing nothing to improve their lot, the faster Israeli Arabs will disprove growing perceptions of them as strategic risks from within.

Don't hold your breath waiting for 'Israeli-Arabs' to break the cycle. Most of them are more interested in destroying Israel.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:46 PM