Israel to revoke Azmi Bishara’s citizenship

CAIRO – 1 August 2017: Opinion: Azmi Bishara will get a taste of his own medicine. Bishara who is known as Qatar’s puppet may be deprived of his Israeli citizenship.

The Israeli Minister of Interior Affairs, Aryeh Deri, has officially asked the Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, to withdraw citizenship from former Arab Member of the Knesset Azmi Bishara.

Israel accuses Bishara of “communicating with an enemy state in time of war, helping an enemy state and cooperating with terrorist organizations, while he was still a member of the Knesset.”

Last March the Knesset passed the amendment to the Citizenship Law, which permits the government to revoke a citizenship in absentia.

If the request is granted, it will be the first time an Israeli citizenship is revoked.

Azmi Bishara, was born in 1957 in the city of Nazareth, in the Northern District of Israel. In high school, Bishara joined Rakah, the Israeli Communist Party, which implicitly recognizes the right of the Israeli presence on the Arab land. He was elected member of the Knesset in 1996.

In Qatar, Bishara led the Qatari media plan to spread chaos, through Al Jazeera channel, founded by the former Emir Hamad bin Khalifa in 1996, one year after his coup against his father Sheikh Khalifa Al-Thani, to divert attention from the coup and attack all Arab regimes and interfere in their affairs.

In January 2015, a new television network called “Al-Araby Al-Jadeed” was launched and Bishara was set to head the new Qatari funded TV channel, which was meant to compete with Al Jazeera.

The Qatari opposition coalition in Geneva published a document, on 28 May 2017, of an edict by the Prince of Qatar, Tamim Bin Hamad, to appoint the Palestinian Bishara, who also holds the Israeli citizenship, as an adviser to the Amiri Diwan at the rank of a minister.