Truthmatters
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- May 10, 2007
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Israel Set to Ban Arab Opposition Party From Elections | News From Antiwar.com
I hope this isnt true.
This means they are not really a democracy.
As a popular party with Israel’s large Arab minority, the Balad Party has been seen as a prime mover behind the nation’s domestic antiwar movement. Though officials have repeatedly warned them that “there is a limit to democracy” in Israel, this opposition party never seems to have fully learned its lesson.
“The goals of Hamas and Balad are the same: to destroy Israel,” insists the always bellicose Yisrael Beitenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, who favors a ban on the party. The Balad Party’s stated goal is to “transform the state of Israel into a democracy for all its citizens, irrespective of national or ethnic identity,” a goal which makes it dangerously radical in a state which views its non-Jewish citizens as second-class in the best of times and traitors during most wars.
Balad was barred from the 2003 elections amid claims that it was secretly involved in terrorism, though this ban was later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court citing insufficient evidence. Lieberman hopes to see the ban renewed in time for next month’s elections, and in a war-time Israel where censorship is rampant and antiwar protesters are traitors to the state, he may just get his wish.
I hope this isnt true.
This means they are not really a democracy.
As a popular party with Israel’s large Arab minority, the Balad Party has been seen as a prime mover behind the nation’s domestic antiwar movement. Though officials have repeatedly warned them that “there is a limit to democracy” in Israel, this opposition party never seems to have fully learned its lesson.
“The goals of Hamas and Balad are the same: to destroy Israel,” insists the always bellicose Yisrael Beitenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, who favors a ban on the party. The Balad Party’s stated goal is to “transform the state of Israel into a democracy for all its citizens, irrespective of national or ethnic identity,” a goal which makes it dangerously radical in a state which views its non-Jewish citizens as second-class in the best of times and traitors during most wars.
Balad was barred from the 2003 elections amid claims that it was secretly involved in terrorism, though this ban was later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court citing insufficient evidence. Lieberman hopes to see the ban renewed in time for next month’s elections, and in a war-time Israel where censorship is rampant and antiwar protesters are traitors to the state, he may just get his wish.
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