{"article":{"id":25366,"heading":"Some disturbing twists in the road of Israeli "Democracy" posted in the NY Times","author":"Marc","created":"2003-01-08 00:15:08","modified":"2013-11-10 23:48:03","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 06:48:03","article":"

BEERSHEBA, Israel

Even amid conflict, Israelis have always applauded

themselves for allowing anyone to run for office -

including those who reject the very raison d'être of a

Jewish state.

Only rarely has a political party been banned from the

elections, the most notable being Kach, the extreme

rightist anti-Arab party founded by Meir Kahane.

But now, with a round of Knesset elections three weeks

away, Israel has much less reason for pride. While Mr.

Kahane's successor, Baruch Marzel, was allowed to run for

office as the No. 2 candidate for another extreme rightist

party, the two most prominent Arab legislators in the

outgoing Knesset, Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bishara, were barred

by the Central Election Committee last week.

The committee, composed of representatives of the parties

that have Knesset seats and two neutral members (both of

whom opposed the decision), described Mr. Tibi and Mr.

Bishara as consistently expressing opposition to the

existence of a Jewish state (as contrasted with a state of

\"all its citizens\" in which everyone is equal, Jew or

Arab). Under Israeli law, such opposition bars a person's

candidacy. Mr. Bishara was also accused of supporting armed

resistance in the occupied territories, an accusation he

denied.

Mr. Marzel, whose candidacy was in danger because of his

association with the banned Kach, could run, the committee

members decided, because he had assured them that he no

longer held to the racist policies of Kach - even though he

is often shown on television promoting \"transfer,\" a code

word for the expulsion of the Palestinians from the West

Bank and Gaza.

The final decision on Mr. Tibi's and Mr. Bishara's

candidacies now rests with the Supreme Court, which is

scheduled to hear the candidates' appeals tomorrow. But

even if the court overturns the ban, Israeli Arab voters'

faith in the election system has been broken. The message

could not be clearer: if you are a Jewish extremist, you

can go on the campaign trail. But if you belong to the Arab

minority and do not openly toe the government line, you

cannot be part of the election game.

In the elections held for prime minister just two years

ago, one factor in the defeat of Prime Minister Ehud Barak

was the Arab minority's boycott of the polls. This was seen

by most political commentators as a dangerous step toward

voluntary disenfranchisement of 20 percent of the country.

Arab politicians have worked hard to convince their

constituents that the way to achieve greater economic and

social equality - and to realize the goal of a state for

their Palestinian cousins - is by engaging in the political

process.

But such efforts may now have been in vain. With their two

most outspoken representatives banned, Israeli Arabs are

saying that once again, they will stay away from the polls.

Even if the Supreme Court allows Mr. Tibi and Mr. Bishara

to run, Israeli Arabs will remain reluctant to vote,

because the message of the election committee has been

heard loud and clear in Arab towns and villages.

Who can blame them? No Israeli prime minister has ever

given leaders of the Arab parties significant positions of

power. The argument used to justify the exclusion has been

that cabinet discussions are too sensitive to include

representatives with Palestinian sympathies.

The ban on Mr. Tibi and Mr. Bishara demonstrates that it is

only a short step from excluding parties from the cabinet

to excluding their representatives altogether. By not

protesting this exclusion from government positions, we

have paved the way for the more extreme antidemocracy

measures last week. No matter the decision of the Supreme

Court tomorrow, the damage to Israeli democracy has been

done.



David Newman is professor of political geography at Ben

Gurion University of the Negev.

<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/01\/06\/opinion\/06NEWM.html?ex=1042878763&ei=1&en=1b6e6ea544b35219","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"A Decision That Hurts Israeli Democracy\r\n\r\nJanuary 6, 2003\r\nBy DAVID NEWMAN \r\n","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/01\/25366.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":25531,"heading":"update, and progress?","article":"Court Overturns Israeli Rule to Ban Arab Lawmakers From Office\r\n\r\nJanuary 9, 2003\r\nBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFiled at 10:19 a.m. ET \r\n\r\nJERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's Supreme Court restored the\r\ncandidacy of two Arab legislators in a ruling Thursday,\r\noverturning a ban that had threatened to bring a tidal wave\r\nof resentment from Israel's large Arab minority. \r\n\r\nAlso Thursday, four polls conducted in the wake of new\r\ncorruption charges indicated that Prime Minister Ariel\r\nSharon may have lost his wide lead over dovish challenger\r\nAmram Mitzna and is no longer assured victory in the Jan.\r\n28 election. \r\n\r\nThe slide came after authorities began investigating a $1.5\r\nmillion loan that Sharon's sons received from a South\r\nAfrica-based businessman to cover payback of improper\r\ncampaign funds from a previous election. Sharon planned a\r\npress conference later Thursday to address the allegation. \r\n\r\nThe high court ruling was rendered by 11 justices, a\r\nnumber usually reserved for landmark cases. The court\r\noverturned a decision two weeks ago by the Central Election\r\nCommission to disqualify Arab legislators Azmi Bishara and\r\nAhmed Tibi on grounds they sided with Israel's enemies. \r\n\r\nThe court ruled unanimously on Tibi and 7-4 on Bishara. The\r\njudges' arguments were not immediately released. \r\n\r\nBishara hailed the decision as a victory for Israeli\r\ndemocracy and said it would help reassure the country's\r\nArab citizens. ``Arabs in Israel will have a feeling they\r\nare not orphans of Israeli democracy, they are citizens of\r\nIsrael,'' Bishara said. \r\n\r\nThe legislator said he expected a high turnout by Arab\r\nvoters in the upcoming election and that this could hurt\r\nSharon's re-election chances. A strong showing by Arab\r\nparties could deprive Israel's right wing of a majority in\r\nparliament. \r\n\r\nMany of Israel's 1.2 million Arab citizens -- more than a\r\nsixth of the population -- saw the case as a watershed in\r\ntheir troubled relations with the Jewish majority. Israeli\r\nArabs have long complained of discrimination at the hands\r\nof Israeli governments, and the disqualification of Bishara\r\nand Tibi was seen as an attempt to curb the Arab voice. \r\n\r\nThe Central Election Commission had accused Bishara of\r\ninciting violence against Israel, including during a trip\r\nto Syria where he praised Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas,\r\nwhile Tibi allegedly sided with Yasser Arafat and his\r\nPalestinian Authority against the Jewish state. Both\r\nlegislators denied the charges, saying they oppose\r\nviolence, and were simply criticizing Israeli government\r\npolicy. \r\n\r\nIn other decisions, the high court upheld the candidacy of\r\nBaruch Marzel, a Jewish extremist who was once a leading\r\nfigure in Kach, a movement founded by U.S.-born Rabbi Meir\r\nKahane and later outlawed as racist. \r\n\r\nThe court also disqualified the candidacy of Defense\r\nMinister Shaul Mofaz, saying he had not been out of the\r\narmy long enough to run for parliament. Mofaz is a former\r\narmy chief of staff. \r\n\r\nThursday's polls indicated that Sharon's right-wing Likud\r\nparty is continuing to ground ahead of elections for the\r\n120-member parliament, a trend that began about a month\r\nago. \r\n\r\nUnder the Israeli system, voters choose parties, not\r\ncandidates for prime minister. A party leader must stitch\r\ntogether a majority coalition to win the premiership, and\r\nas Likud slips, the task of forming a government that once\r\nlooked like an automatic Sharon success becomes less\r\nclear-cut. \r\n\r\nA survey in the Haaretz daily showed Likud winning 27\r\nseats, down from about 40 at the beginning of the campaign\r\nin November. Labor was up from 22 to 24. \r\n\r\nAccording to the Haaretz poll, Likud and its allies would\r\nwin only 61 seats, a bare majority, down from 67 in\r\nNovember, while Labor and its partners would receive 40\r\nseats, up from 27. Centrist parties -- Shinui and Am Echad\r\n-- would get 19, the poll predicted. The Haaretz-Dialogue\r\npoll questioned 521 eligible voters and had a margin of\r\nerror of 4.3 percentage points. \r\n\r\nA survey for the Yediot Aharonot newspaper gave Likud 28\r\nseats, Labor 22 and Shinui 17. It polled 653 people and\r\ncited a 3.4 percent margin of error. \r\n\r\nThe Maariv daily's poll showed Likud winning 30 seats,\r\nLabor 22 and Shinui 14. Like Haaretz, it projected the\r\nright-wing bloc overall as commanding 61 seats. It said it\r\nquestioned 1,000 people but gave no margin of error. \r\n\r\nAnother survey, conducted by Geocartographia for Israeli\r\narmy radio showed Likud getting 32 seats, Labor 20 and\r\nShinui 15. The radio did not give its poll's margin of\r\nerror. \r\n\r\nThe surveys were taken after Haaretz printed a leaked\r\nJustice Ministry document that showed that police were\r\ninvestigating Sharon and his sons in connection with the\r\nSouth African loan. \r\n\r\nIsrael's attorney general, Elyakim Rubinstein, confirmed\r\nWednesday that a police investigation is under way and that\r\nIsrael had asked for South African assistance. \r\n\r\nLikud was already losing momentum because of a scandal over\r\nalleged payoffs, shakedowns and other corruption in\r\ninternal elections for its list of candidates for\r\nparliament.\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/international\/AP-Israel-Politics.html?ex=1043132247&ei=1&en=f56e36eeacdb1869\r\n","author":"Marc","parent_id":25366,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-01-10 18:23:52","modified":"2003-01-10 18:23:52","fileurl":""}]}