Arab Israeli lawmaker in inquiry resigns

Azmi Bishara, long a strident and influential voice of Israel’s restive Arab minority and lately the object of a criminal investigation, resigned from parliament Sunday after leaving the country.

The announcement was a setback for Israel’s Arab community, whose declining confidence in the political system led many of its leaders in December to issue a manifesto rejecting the idea of Israel as a Jewish state and demanding a partnership in governing the country.

Bishara, 50, handed his resignation to the Israeli ambassador in Cairo and said he would remain abroad to avoid any legal restrictions on his travels as the case unfolds.

Israeli police announced last week that their international crimes unit was investigating the legislator, but a court has barred them from giving details of any charges. Israeli news media have speculated that the case might involve corruption or treason.

Bishara has been under fire for making frequent visits to Syria and Lebanon, which Israel considers enemy states. His calls on Arabs around the world to support the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel have fed a stereotype among the country’s Jews that its large Arab population constitutes a “fifth column.”

Many Israelis were shocked when Bishara sat next to the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, at a memorial service in Syria for the late President Hafez Assad in 2001. Israel regards Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and waged war against it in Lebanon for 34 days last summer.

But many Arab Israelis view Bishara as a forceful advocate for equality. Israel’s 1.4 million Arab citizens make up about 20% of the population and have long complained of being shortchanged in government allocations for public services, education and health and social benefits.

Bishara has said he is being persecuted for his criticism of Israel’s political system. He left Israel last month for what he said was a family vacation and a lecture tour of Arab countries, shortly before reports of the criminal case surfaced.

The legislator told the Al Jazeera satellite channel Sunday that he had resigned to prevent his opponents in parliament from stripping him of his immunity from prosecution and making a spectacle of the case.

He said that his wife and two children were in Israel and that he planned to return, “but the matter will take some time and arrangements. I want to set the rules of the game.”

“I have my own political, ideological and leadership stature,” he added. “I will not comply with an investigation conducted this way.”

Some Jewish lawmakers welcomed Bishara’s resignation. “Good riddance,” said Effi Eitam, a right-wing legislator. Another member of parliament, Yuval Steinitz, said Israel should try to arrest Bishara and bring him home to stand trial.

Bishara, a Christian from Nazareth, is the founding leader of the National Democratic Assembly, an Arab party with a nationalist platform. He was one of 13 Arabs in the 120-seat parliament.

Elie Rekhess, a Tel Aviv University professor specializing in the Arab minority, said Bishara’s resignation was motivated in part by frustration that Arabs could not achieve their political goals through parliament.

Ibrahim Sarsur, an Arab lawmaker, called Bishara’s resignation “a great loss.” He said that although Arab Israelis had not made “great achievements” through parliament, it remained “a platform that should be taken advantage of.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson agreed Sunday to step down for at least three months while police looked into charges that he failed to report embezzlement by subordinates and may have taken some money himself when he headed a labor union in 2003.

The announcement was the latest scandal to tarnish the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is under investigation for his real estate dealings and the sale of a state-owned bank during his tenure as finance minister. The attorney general has announced his intention to indict President Moshe Katsav on charges of rape and sexual assault.