"Wipe Out Israel and Take Democracy With You"

From Arutz Sheva 18:50 Dec 18, '05 / 17 Kislev 5766 By Debbie Berman ...

Arab Israeli Knesset Member Azmi Bishara ... addressing an Arab audience in Lebanon, asserted that Arabs were the original residents of the land and urged Israelis to leave and take their democracy with them.

”Israel is the 20th century's greatest robbery, carried out in broad daylight. I will never recognize Zionism even if all Arabs do. I will never concede Palestine. The battle is still long," Arab Knesset member Azmi Bishara stated at a Lebanese book fair last week in Beirut. "The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not a demographic dispute, but a national one. It's not the problem of 1.2 million Palestinians living in Israel. They are like all Arabs, only with Israeli citizenship forced upon them. We are the original residents of Palestine, not those who came from Poland and Russia," Bishara told Lebanese newspaper Al -Safir. .... "Return Palestine to us and take your democracy with you. We Arabs are not interested in it..." ....

Knesset Member Azmi Bishara was born in Nazareth in 1956...(he) announced his intentions to campaign for re-election to the Knesset in the upcoming elections in the party that he founded, the National Democratic Assembly (NDA). Bishara left Israel for Lebanon last week without receiving consent from the Interior Ministry for his trip.

This is not the first time Bishara has brashly spoken against Israel to audiences in hostile Arab nations. In June, 2001... in Syria at a memorial ceremony in Damascus for the late Hafez Assad....Bishara appeared jointly with Hizbullah terrorist leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and called for a ‘united Arab nation’ to come together against Israel. Angry reactions from Knesset members included then Coalition leader Likud MK Ze'ev Boim who said, "Bishara has publicly connected himself to Israel's worst enemies. This cannot be ignored, and the police should detain him and possibly charge him for conspiring with the enemy." MK Michael Kleiner of Herut stated, "In any normal country, they'd put him in front of a firing squad. It's inconceivable that an Israeli Knesset member would encourage Arab states to launch a full-scale war against us."

...In addition to his harsh statements against Israel, Bishara also criticized the leaders of Arab nations who maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, including Tunisia where Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom recently visited. "Why does one of the Arab countries provide a home for Silvan Shalom, while the army destroys homes in Palestine on a daily basis? If you want to surrender, do it, but don't force us to give in," Bishara told Al-Safir.