The Knesset House Committee yesterday voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of MK Azmi Bishara (Balad), opening the way for him to be tried for statements he made supporting the Hizbullah and for arranging illegal visits to Syria for Israeli Arabs. If the Knesset plenum approves the move, as expected, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein will file the two indictments. Legal experts consider the proceedings against Bishara due to his political opinions "unprecedented."

Rubinstein called the Knesset action "a correct decision dictated by reality." He added, "Bishara did not leave us much choice due to his actions" and said the courts "must show acceptable boundaries even in the framework of a democracy that believes in freedom of expression."

The first indictment charges that Bishara expressed

"Making him stand trial will only serve Bishara's interests, turning him into a victim, into a Nelson Mandela" - Labor MK Effi Oshaya

support for a terror organization when he spoke at a memorial to Syrian President Hafez Assad held in Syria in June. Appearing on the podium beside Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and leaders of Hamas and other Syria-based militant Palestinian groups, Bishara called for "expanding the sphere of resistance" against "Israel's dictates" so that "people can carry on with the struggle." Bishara praised Hizbullah as a "heroic" example of "Islamic resistance."

The second indictment is for Bishara's role in organizing the trips to Syria. It is against the law for ordinary Israeli citizens to visit a country with which Israel is at war without a special permit.

The Knesset has voted to lift a member's immunity more than 30 times in the past. In all of the previous cases, MKs were charged with either traffic offenses or white-collar crimes such as bribe-taking or foreign currency offenses.

MK Zeev Boim (Likud) said in its decision, the House Committee "acted to protect democracy. We said no to supporters of terror, to those who aim to bring harm to the country and who eat away at its foundations," he added.

Bishara, who did not attend the meeting, said he "did not commit any crime, and removing an MK's immunity for expressing his democratic political views is a mark of shame for the Knesset." Bishara said he did not plan to appeal the Knesset decision, but would instead "convince the courts that this is a political indictment."

Labor faction chairman Effi Oshaya felt that the decision to lift Bishara's immunity could backfire. "Making him stand trial will only serve Bishara's interests, turning him into a victim, into a Nelson Mandela," he said. "I am afraid that as a result of this vote, he will move from one Knesset seat to five."

Committee chairman Yossi Katz (Labor) called the decision a dangerous precedent. "Whoever hurts the freedom of speech on one side of the political map will be hurt by the same precedent tomorrow," he said.

Legal experts call decision "unprecedented"
Prof. Ariel Ben-Dor, an expert in constitutional law at Haifa University, said "trying Azmi Bishara on the charge of his support for a terrorist organization is very problematic. Bringing criminal charges against a Knesset member for expressing his opinion is unprecedented."

Ben-Dor explained in Yediot Aharonot today that a Knesset member is granted complete immunity allowing him to freely express opinions within the framework of his position in the parliament. But, Ben-Dor said, in recent years the High Court of Justice has tended to define immunity in a more limited fashion, "because of the damage and inequality it causes before the law between Knesset members and regular civilians."

"It is doubtful whether the statements made by Bishara in his appearances in Syria and in Umm el-Fahm, that are the reason for bringing charges against him, fulfill all the demands of the offense of supporting a terror organization, as defined by the High Court," Ben-Dor said.

In a column in today's Ha'aretz, Ari Shavit writes that, "However, grave as they may be, Bishara's statements contain no direct and explicit preaching of the use of violence." Shavit says that "as long as Israel was an occupying force in Lebanon, and as long as the Hizbullah was fighting the Israeli occupier and focused its struggle on fighting Israeli military forces, it was not a terror organization in the full sense of the word."

According to Shavit, Bishara's "expression of support for the Hizbullah that fought the Israeli occupation of Lebanon was not illegal. It was publicly unforgivable, but it did not place Bishara clearly and absolutely beyond the limits of the criminal red line," Shavit writes.

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