(Azmi Bizbullah, courtesy of Ma'ariv). About the South Lebanon Army – It is inconceivable that traitors and mercenaries be allowed to live amongst us. (October 5, 1999)
About Hezbollah – Hezbollah is a brave national movement that will teach Israel a lesson. It has become a pilot force in the Arab world and it is willing to sacrifice itself for the cause. (February 19, 1999 and June 27, 2000).
About the State of Israel - I am not against the entire Israel becoming Palestine. The Israelis immigrated to us, we did not emigrate to them. (October 14, 2000, interview with Austrian weekly).
About the democratic state – Israel is the greatest robber of the century … Give us back Palestine and take back your democracy. We, the Arabs, are not interested. (December 2005).
According to Ma'ariv, April 10, 2007 (Itamar Enbari), there are several Jewish Israelis in Bishara's constituency among them: translator Yael Lerer, former assistant to Azmi, attorney Leah Tsemel and her husband, Michael Warshawski. I am not surprised that some "people" even consider him their brother. I find this relieving, I now know who my enemies are, thanks to Yisrael Medad.
While crying foul and oppression/suppression he has amassed a substantial fortune (now we know he has been receiving thousands of dollars from Hezbollah and from an undisclosed country), and has managed to close several real estate transactions in the form of houses/mansions in Haifa and Jerusalem, along with securing ownership of his parental house in Nazareth – which is perfectly alright with me: everybody should be entitled to inherit their parents and buy property. According to eye witness reports, he made quite an entrance when he attended his party's (Balad) first post-election gathering in 1996 – in a Benz!!! Which is quite alright with me again – everybody should have access to luxury cars. How many Israeli Arabs can afford several mansions and one luxury automobile? How many Israeli Jews?
I suppose that he is not troubled by any qualms at the thought of several of his Arab brethren (Christian, Muslim and Druze) having been killed in vicious rocket attacks. The cries of the dead and wounded were probably drowned by the sweet sound of counting hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's Judas Iscariot for you! (Azmi is a proud Christian).
By the way, Carl in Jerusalem has a comprehensive analysis of Azmi's secret agent activities.
In any case, some Arab commentators hold Azmi in great admiration, such as Nawaf Atamna who posted on his internet site Machsom (Checkpoint): "Never has the Israeli parliament seen a man of such intellectual prowess, such high moral standards, such sharp insight as MK Azmi Bishara."
I say aye. Alongside the "oldies but goldies" above, here is one more unforgettable example of Azmi's power of expression. Please note the depth of analysis, the ancient wisdom and higher intelligence quality that left his opponent speechless:
On May 12, 2005, during a heated debate in the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice committee over an intended bill to sack such MK's who just can't stay away from terror organizations, Likud MK Gilad Erdan (in favor of the legislation) turned to Azmi (fervent opponent by nature and definition) and said: "Go find a good job in Syria." Azmi, with his quick grasp of the words and unique talent of volleying lethal retorts, not to mention aristocratic manners and elegance, shouted at the top of his lungs: "You go fuck yourself, ya piece of garbage!" See? Go find, go fuck…
About Hezbollah – Hezbollah is a brave national movement that will teach Israel a lesson. It has become a pilot force in the Arab world and it is willing to sacrifice itself for the cause. (February 19, 1999 and June 27, 2000).
About the State of Israel - I am not against the entire Israel becoming Palestine. The Israelis immigrated to us, we did not emigrate to them. (October 14, 2000, interview with Austrian weekly).
About the democratic state – Israel is the greatest robber of the century … Give us back Palestine and take back your democracy. We, the Arabs, are not interested. (December 2005).
According to Ma'ariv, April 10, 2007 (Itamar Enbari), there are several Jewish Israelis in Bishara's constituency among them: translator Yael Lerer, former assistant to Azmi, attorney Leah Tsemel and her husband, Michael Warshawski. I am not surprised that some "people" even consider him their brother. I find this relieving, I now know who my enemies are, thanks to Yisrael Medad.
While crying foul and oppression/suppression he has amassed a substantial fortune (now we know he has been receiving thousands of dollars from Hezbollah and from an undisclosed country), and has managed to close several real estate transactions in the form of houses/mansions in Haifa and Jerusalem, along with securing ownership of his parental house in Nazareth – which is perfectly alright with me: everybody should be entitled to inherit their parents and buy property. According to eye witness reports, he made quite an entrance when he attended his party's (Balad) first post-election gathering in 1996 – in a Benz!!! Which is quite alright with me again – everybody should have access to luxury cars. How many Israeli Arabs can afford several mansions and one luxury automobile? How many Israeli Jews?
I suppose that he is not troubled by any qualms at the thought of several of his Arab brethren (Christian, Muslim and Druze) having been killed in vicious rocket attacks. The cries of the dead and wounded were probably drowned by the sweet sound of counting hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's Judas Iscariot for you! (Azmi is a proud Christian).
By the way, Carl in Jerusalem has a comprehensive analysis of Azmi's secret agent activities.
In any case, some Arab commentators hold Azmi in great admiration, such as Nawaf Atamna who posted on his internet site Machsom (Checkpoint): "Never has the Israeli parliament seen a man of such intellectual prowess, such high moral standards, such sharp insight as MK Azmi Bishara."
I say aye. Alongside the "oldies but goldies" above, here is one more unforgettable example of Azmi's power of expression. Please note the depth of analysis, the ancient wisdom and higher intelligence quality that left his opponent speechless:
On May 12, 2005, during a heated debate in the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice committee over an intended bill to sack such MK's who just can't stay away from terror organizations, Likud MK Gilad Erdan (in favor of the legislation) turned to Azmi (fervent opponent by nature and definition) and said: "Go find a good job in Syria." Azmi, with his quick grasp of the words and unique talent of volleying lethal retorts, not to mention aristocratic manners and elegance, shouted at the top of his lungs: "You go fuck yourself, ya piece of garbage!" See? Go find, go fuck…
Ben Caspit (Ma'ariv, dang, those dates again, but I guess last Friday's edition):
Most people agree that Azmi Bishara won't return to Israel. And why should he? Several years ago he started "living la dolce vita". The great, articulate "ideologist" enjoyed life à la Saudi prince: business class flights around the world, VIP lounge receptions, house guest in Arab world leaders palaces, popular rally speaker. Lots of money must have gone into funding all that.
Were he to return to Israel, he would have to enjoy the good life of a prison cell, his name highly
unlikely to appear on the next prisoner exchange list, nor the one after that. That's why Azmi Bishara will not return to Israel, or so his friends will have us know. This is how a brave man runs for his life. The parliamentary career of this great revolutionary comes to an end under suspicion of bribery. The great warrior became a fugitive criminal overnight. The Shabak was aware of his intention to flee the country, yet did not stand in his way. Although weeks ago some suggested that his passport be revoked, Azmi was allowed to travel unhindered.
The first police investigation gave him a hint into what would follow, therefore he packed his bags and boarded the first plane out of Israel only to resurface on Al-Jazeera, as expected. He will keep on bothering us for some time courtesy of Arab TV stations. On the other hand, his image as a freedom fighter (fucker, go find, go fuck, go fight, go fuck), social justice advocate, great socio-political and ideological reformer would have been greatly amplified by the wall-to-wall media coverage of the circus act of his trial (had there ever been one). Now, it appears that Azmi was none of the above (except perhaps fucker).
Let us be clear on this point: investigating ex-MK Bishara is not aiming to investigate the entire Israeli Arab sector. Not even Balad (shame, Zahalka advocates kidnapping IDF troops, plus the Balad trio - Bishara, Zahalka and Wassil travelled to Beirut after the second Lebanon war to express their support for Hezbollah). The police are investigating the doings of one person alone. And rightly so, because the large majority of Israeli Arabs (except the rapists and those who crash their vehicles into ours with the sole purpose of killing us or at least maiming us for life) are not suspected of espionage or money-laundering. The Arab minority in Israel is a lot better than its leaders combined (I largely agree).
...
On the rare occasions when he graced the Knesset with his presence, Bishara's eyes were full of contempt for everything this institution stands for, contempt for the state that generously covered his expenses contempt for his Zionist colleagues, contempt for most of the issues on the agenda. He kept on spitting into the very well he himself was drinking from. And nothing stopped him from fighting like a cornered panther for a seat in the "Zionist parliament". He craved the honors, the attention, the spotlight and mostly the immunity. He never intended to relinquish any of those. Except that now that his monkey business has been discovered, it suddenly dawns on him that perhaps this might be a good time to retire. To do what? Since we know that he has already taken very good care of his own house, he will probably concentrate on ruining our own. Quite adroitly.
There were more sides to his activities. Such as performing discreet missions for the Israeli government, such as carrying Ehud Barak's messages to president Assad, e.g., while the napkin carrying Danny Yatom's proposed borders for Israel retreat from the Golan Heights earned him the "collaborationist" status.
He loathed the media covering that. Balad's internet site did what was expected in such situation: blamed the press. But we loved it. So Azmi traveled to Damascus, met with Assad and presented Barak's plan and how the depth of the redeployment. But as far as he himself was concerned, the world should have remained ignorant. That was worse than spying for the enemy during war: that was colluding with the enemy during peace. Bishara was very careful in picking his enemies, according to his ideology or financial needs at any given time.
All of this is over now. In any normal country this man would not have been allowed a parliamentary seat. Except that six years ago the Supreme Court Justices ruled - seven to four - that he should not be demoted , in other words they came up with a new and original formula on how to turn shit into gold - the risk of Bishara's ideas materializing was so low that he should be allowed to maintain his Knesset seat whence he would be allowed to go on "preaching". This was the lame rationale behind their decision, despite the fact the both Talia Sasson (State Attorney) and Elyakim Rubinstein (Attorney General) recommended outlawing Balad. Translated into English - imagine that the Americans would allow Al-Qaeda supporters Congress seats on the assumption that "the risk of Al-Qaeda's aspirations of destroying the USA is not high enough". In the meantime we have discovered that Bishara's aspirations had a higher chance of materializing than the Supreme court had initially assessed. And we have to pay the price.
And now for a bit of Hebrew:
Az mi boged? (? אז מי בוגד) - so who is a traitor?
Azmi boged (עזמי בוגד) - Azmi is a traitor.
