'Nadav' v. Balad
Danny Rabinowitz
Haaretz, 31 December 2002
Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein's request to the Central Elections Committee that it ban the Balad list from running for Knesset is based on two dramatic but unlikely scenarios.
The first is the so-called dual-identity scenario. According to the attorney general, most of the time, the leaders of Balad disguise their true essence with softened public statements; and only when it comes to the crunch, behind closed doors, does their true nature rise to the surface, and their true identity, of evil devices, suddenly emerges.
The attorney general claims that the deception was uncovered by a determined and sophisticated team: anonymous collaborators who came back with quotations from behind those closed doors, and an objective professional, Shin Bet security service agent "Nadav," who compiled the intelligence report that accompanied the disqualification request and knew how to interpret the texts.
The second, futuristic scenario is the risk scenario. Balad's deceptions, claims Rubinstein, incorporate genuine threats, from both home and abroad. From home, the party, which is striving to change the character of Israel as a democratic Jewish state, could succeed. Externally, it supports the terror organizations' struggles against the state.
These two dangers serve as the justification for a move that even the attorney general defines as "extreme" - denying Balad the right to participate in the elections, and denying its potential voters the right to representation in the Knesset.
But are the dangers Rubinstein perceives really tangible? Do they justify denying a basic right? Will the damage that is done by the party be greater than the damage done by banning it?
The CEC's debate on the request to disqualify Baruch Marzel, the Kach leader who is now second on the Herut list, shows that expecting the current composition of the panel to provide responsible answers to these questions is tantamount to hitchhiking at a car race.
If there's any hope for a reasonable resolution to this unbridled campaign, it stems from the fact that its final round will take place next week in the Supreme Court.
With regard to Balad's true identity, the court will have to decide what supersedes what - the claims of anonymous informants whose motives are unclear, and whose charges have not been examined by a neutral observer, while the only interpretation of these claims has been provided by a mystery man and has been vigorously rejected by Balad's own people; or hundreds of public speeches and articles published by Balad leaders in a variety of media and languages, transparently detailing the party's platform and in which no law enforcement agency has found any grounds for banning the party or putting its members on trial.
Is a political party's principal program undermined by statements made, or not made, behind closed doors, by statements understood, or not, by those who heard them, by statements twisted, or not, by those who interpreted them?
Or is a party's platform determined by its official publications, its manifesto, its legislative proposals and its active - and challenging - participation in the public and academic discourse about the character of the state?
The discussion of these issues will also raise fascinating legal questions touching on the rules of evidence and transparency: What does it mean when the attorney general - who is also, it should be recalled, the chief prosecutor in the trial of Balad chairman MK Azmi Bishara on charges of expressing support for a terrorist organization - is, at the same time (and before the court has given its verdict), seeking to outlaw Balad for the very same reasons?
And considering the fact that the amendment to the Basic Law on the Knesset that defines support for a terrorist group as grounds for banning a list was legislated in May 2002, how is it possible to use alleged evidence presented by the attorney general to prove Balad's support for such organizations if such evidence was amassed before the amendment passed into law?
These issues require a responsible and cautious debate even under ordinary political and legal circumstances, and even more so under the current circumstances, in which the fabric of relations between Jews and Arabs has become so fragile.
The possibility that the Arabs in Israel will perceive the attorney general's move as a legal and political divorce and turn to a sweeping boycott of the elections is very real.
Such a boycott, if it happens, could decide the fate of the next coalition and leave the two communities alienated from each other for many years to come.
