Adalah Demands Cancellation of Motions to Disqualify the Arab National Democratic Assembly Party from Participating in Upcoming Knesset Elections as They are Legally Baseless
On 7 January 2009, Adalah submitted its detailed response to the Central Elections Committee (CEC) to three motions to disqualify the National Democratic Assembly Party (NDA, Tajamu or Balad) from participating in the upcoming elections to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The response was filed by Adalah Attorneys Hassan Jabareen and Abeer Baker.
Three separate motions to disqualify the NDA were filed by: the far-right party Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel is Our Home”) Party and its chair Avigdor Lieberman; Michal Ben-Ari from the far-right National Union Party; and an independent businessman named Itai Forman.
The disqualification motion filed by Yisrael Beiteinu claimed that the founder of the NDA, Dr. Azmi Bishara, had left the country amid allegations that he had committed serious security offenses including assisting Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War, and that the party has never denounced the statements and actions of Dr. Bishara, but has instead continued to support him. These claims are based on quotations taken from the leaders of the NDA that were published in newspapers and Internet websites. The other disqualification motions dealt with the party’s political platform and statements made by its leaders demanding the establishment of a “state for all its citizens”, or alleged that the NDA supported Israel’s “enemy states” in their military operations against it.
The response filed by Adalah relies primarily on an affidavit given by NDA MKs Dr. Jamal Zahalqa, Wasel Taha and Said Naffa. According to the statement attributed to MK Zahalqa, the head of the NDA, he will not retract a single word or statement he has made and will not justify any stance he has adopted in the past
The affidavit given by MK Zahalqa also shows that the NDA thought deeply in the current round of elections about the possibility of filing disqualification motions against Yisrael Beiteinu and its chair Avigdor Lieberman and against the National Union Party, on the basis of their racist stances towards Arab citizens of Israel and for urging their expulsion from the country. However, the NDA decided against taking this step since, were such a motion to be accepted, it could be exploited in order to restrict the freedom of opinion of Arab citizens.
MK Zahalqa further stated that the NDA chose to respond to the arguments of those who seek the party’s disqualification in order to use this platform to block Liberman’s attempts to undermine the legitimacy of Arabs and to present the democratic principles and values of the NDA, and the principle that differentiates it from other political parties, namely the “state for all its citizens.” Zahalqa emphasized in his statement that the NDA’s vision is not limited to the liberal concept of individual liberty and the right of the individual to equality, but that the party also believes that the collective, community identity of the individual is an integral part of his or her right to personal autonomy, and that separating the individual from his or her collective identity constitutes a breach of this autonomy. The equality that the NDA is calling for through the concept of a “state for all its citizens” rejects the preference of a certain ideology or nationality over any other or of one people over another, stated Zahalqa. Further, the NDA categorically rejects a view held by a specific national group, the Jewish majority in Israel, that the state is its own private property. Hence the NDA’s criticism of the definition of the state as a Jewish state in principle and in practice, given that this definition allows it to dominate and exclude the Other.
As regards Dr. Azmi Bishara and the fact that he left the country after being hounded by the Israeli security services, MK Zahalqa stated that the political persecution of Dr. Bishara began from the first moment of his founding the NDA in 1995. Since that date several attempts were made by the right wing to prevent him and the party from taking part in elections, the most recent of which was launched in 2003. After these repeated attempts failed the political persecution of Bishara took a different form as the security services open a security file against him, seeking to transform an ideological debate and dispute into a criminal matter.
In the response, Adalah Attorneys Jabareen and Baker emphasized that there is no legal basis on which to disqualify the NDA. The disqualification motions and all of the evidence they contain fail to fulfill the criteria set by the Supreme Court in various decision regarding the minimum standards for the disqualification of a political party from elections, which are denying the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and supporting terrorism. Adalah further argued that preventing party lists from standing for election harms the constitutional right of the public who vote for these lists to elect their representative to the Knesset. Adalah added that the fact that those who filed the motions relied on incomplete quotations taken from newspapers and Internet websites and taking them out of context indicates that they are politically motivated and aim to harm the constitutional right of the representatives of the NDA and their constituencies.
The Central Elections Committee will hold a session to discuss the motions on 12 January 2009.
