Arab MKs’ statements concerning the nullification of the Jewish state are best understood in light of the political context in which they appear, since they have been articulated by people well-versed in the political realities of Israel and completely aware of the Jewish majority’s “red lines.” Under the banner of liberal notions of equality and fairness, they have united in taking aim at the very ideas and assumptions that most Jews view as the essential foundations of a Jewish state.

 

The Arab MKs’ active opposition to the Jewish state is not limited, however, to a legitimate political struggle over the state’s character. Instead, their remarks at times seem to reflect an identification with almost every group, movement, or country that has taken up arms against Israel. They may not support each of Israel’s enemies in equal measure (internal Arab politics also has an effect on statements about whom they back), but one can find declarations of sympathy—if not downright admiration and support—for almost every leader or organization currently at war with the Jewish state.

The most striking example, of course, is the support of Arab Knesset members for Yasser Arafat, who continued to wage a violent struggle against Israel even after the Oslo accords were signed in 1993. Ahmed Tibi, his former adviser, has continued to express full support of the Palestinian Authority chairman despite having sworn allegiance to Israel as a member of its parliament. Arafat is a “gentleman,” Tibi told The Washington Post this past April: “I am talking to Yasser Arafat every day.”²⁵ Of course, such statements are mild compared with the extensive record Tibi built as Arafat’s Israeli mouthpiece in the years prior to his election. “I have been on close, personal terms with the chairman for twelve years,” he told the Israeli daily Ma’ariv in November 1996. “Everything I do is done on his directions. I believe he has faith in me and I hope I justify that faith.”²⁶ Other MKs who do not enjoy Arafat’s patronage have still aligned themselves for many years with the struggle he leads. During a 1989 visit to Cairo, well before the 1993 Oslo accords and Arafat’s diplomatic rehabilitation, Abdulwahab Darawshe declared in an interview with the Saudi newspaper Al-Majalah that “Every step I take inside [Israel] is on the instructions of Yasser Arafat and some of the [Palestine Liberation] Organization’s leadership, and they know about them.”²⁷ Criticism of the Palestinian leadership is heard occasionally, but mainly from those who believe, like Azmi Bishara or the leaders of the Islamic Movement, that Arafat is not aggressive enough in prosecuting the struggle against Israel.

Radical Islamic organizations also get their share of support from Arab leaders in Israel—despite their denial of Israel’s right to exist and their campaign of terror against its civilians. Abdulmalik Dehamshe, an attorney who is the leader of the United Arab List, has represented Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in court, and proudly displays a photograph of him in his home. According to Dehamshe, Yassin is “a wonderful person,” “a great man and a man of peace.” Hamas, he explained, does not actually send suicide bombers because it is, at its essence, a political organization, and only military organizations “do such things.”²⁸ Other Arab-Israeli leaders usually do not express open admiration for Hamas, and they sometimes condemn the terrorist activities of the Islamic organizations—although their reasoning often focuses more on Palestinian interests than moral considerations. Thus, for example, when Ahmed Tibi spoke out against an attack by Hamas on a bus carrying children from the Kfar Darom settlement in Gaza in 1998, he emphasized the political cost to the Palestinians: “The attempt to blow up the school bus from Kfar Darom is grave and dangerous beyond comparison. Whoever sent the perpetrators was in effect saying to [then Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, ‘Do not pull out, do not implement the agreement,’ thereby causing damage to the most important Palestinian interest. Whoever did this betrayed the Palestinian people, even if he is a Palestinian.”²⁹

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah likewise has a place in the pantheon of Arab MKs’ heroes. Its attacks against Israel, both in Lebanon and within Israel’s borders, are considered acceptable—at times applauded—even by figures whose ideology is far removed from Islamic radicalism. During a meeting with Arab students in Haifa in early 1999, MK Hashem Mahameed, of the communist Hadash party, called the Hezbollah “a national liberation movement of the first order” and praised its members as “freedom fighters.” He reported that “Lebanon has turned into a vast graveyard for the occupation soldiers.”³⁰ In February 1999, at the opening of his party’s national convention, Azmi Bishara continued his consistent support for the Shi’ite organization by declaring that “Hezbollah is a courageous national force that has taught Israel a lesson. Despite being a fundamentalist party, it has become the vanguard of the Arab world, proudly carrying the nationalist banner and willing to make sacrifices to achieve this end.”³¹

Most telling, perhaps, is the attitude Arab MKs display toward the brutal dictatorships of the Middle East—which seems to see no contradiction between an insistence upon an uncompromising implementation of liberal-democratic principles and absolute equality in Israel and a tolerance for, or even admiration of, tyranny in Arab states. At most, they express timid reservations of the kind permissible even in totalitarian societies. In 1994, Darawshe organized the first delegation of Arab citizens of Israel to visit Syria in order to offer condolences to President Hafez Assad following the death of his son. While there, Darawshe took the opportunity to meet with three of the most notorious figures in the history of Palestinian terrorism—Ahmed Jibril, George Habash, and Naif Hawatmeh. During another visit, in 1997, Darawshe met President Assad and told him, “You are the greatest of them all, the most senior of all the world’s leaders.” In an interview with an Israeli reporter, Darawshe described his impressions of his visit to Syria:

Darawshe expressed approval of Syria’s de facto military control of Lebanon as well. The moral illegitimacy of occupation does not apply to the massive Syrian military presence there, he argued, since the army is “there by agreement” and the Syrian soldiers in Lebanon “ensure calm, order, and discipline.… Syria and Lebanon are as one country… an alliance of blood brothers that cannot be disbanded.” Darawshe even recalled how he met “Lebanese who are content that the Syrian army is in Lebanon and say that it is a calming influence that brings internal peace and economic prosperity.”³³

At the end of 1997, Azmi Bishara, a self-proclaimed “humanist” and champion of pluralism, democracy, and freedom, also enjoyed Assad’s hospitality during a week-long visit to Syria. The visit had an official air: Bishara was met at the airport by the government’s chief of protocol and taken by limousine to an exclusive hotel. He held discussions with Syrian leaders, including Vice President Abdul Halim Haddam and Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara. Bishara had no difficulty identifying with the Syrian government’s attitude towards Israel, as he later told the Tel Aviv weekly Ha’ir:

When asked if the Syrians showed any understanding of Israel’s fears that if Syria were to return to the Golan Heights, the Galilee might be vulnerable to shelling as it was prior to 1967, Bishara answered: “It is a little hard for me to look for understanding on their part or to explain a fear which I personally do not share. I think that this fear is the product of a deliberate effort on the part of the [Israeli] Right to play on the ghettoization of Israel.” It is the Syrians who fear Israel, he explained, since it is their land that has been occupied. Israel is the nuclear power that “went over the heads” of the Syrians and entered into a strategic pact with Turkey. Bishara himself expressed belief in Syria’s peaceful intentions: The Syrians “are not looking for war,” and their views were presented to him “in a rational, logical, moderate way.”³⁵