Friday 3 April 2009

Enemies of the state

Hanin Zouabi is the first female Member of Knesset for an Arab party. Despite this milestone, interviews she has given indicate that Arab women’s issues will not be her main focus. A protégé of the former leader of her Balad Party, Azmi Bishara, it appears that she shares his agenda – to campaign for the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state.

(Bishara is currently living in Jordan to escape his arrest by Israeli security services on charges of espionage and aiding enemies of the state, specifically Hizballah.)

Some 20 percent of the population of Israel is Arab, almost 1.5 million people. The vast majority of them are law-abiding and, though they frequently voice opposition to Israeli policies in the territories, the number of Israeli Arabs that have been involved in supporting or perpetrating acts of terrorism is tiny. Nevertheless, when prominent figures in the Arab community, like MKs, use their public platform as a pulpit from which to support antisemitic terror organisations and to call for Israel’s demise, it creates understandable fear of an Arab “fifth column” and strengthens extremists on the Jewish side.

Which leads me to another new MK whose arrival at the Knesset is noteworthy for all the wrong reasons. Michael Ben Ari is an MK with the National Union Party, which supports the “transfer” of Arabs from the West Bank. Ben Ari describes himself as a “devoted student of Rabbi Meir Kahane” the late founder of the Kach Party, the only party ever to be banned from the Knesset for racism. Last week, Ben Ari took part in a march through the Israeli Arab village of Umm-El-Fahm, organized by far-right activists with histories of anti-Arab violence. (Imagine a BNP march through Golders Green headed by David Irving and you will get some idea of why this was so provocative.)

These two unwelcome additions to Israeli public life exemplify threats to Israel’s Jewish character, and its democracy. If Arab MKs do not wish to live in a Jewish state there are plenty of Arab countries they can move to. We will not return to the status quo ante-1948 when we did not have a state of our own. At the same time, there should be no place in Israel's parliament for someone who believes that Israel's non-Jewish citizens should be deprived of their democratic rights. With our history, we do not need our own fascists sitting in the Knesset.

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