Eldad to push 'anti-Islamization' laws

Dec. 10, 2008
Brenda Gazzar , THE JERUSALEM POST

MK Arye Eldad, who is currently with the National Union-National Religious Party but has founded the new Hatikva Party, says he is planning to introduce a package of emergency "anti-Islamization legislation" in the next Knesset to "confront the enemy within and without." The legislation would make military or civil service obligatory for both Arab and Jewish citizens, require all citizens to declare their loyalty to Israel "as a Jewish democratic state" as a condition for voting in national elections and ensure punishments are meted out for illegal construction, which is rife in the Arab sector.

"I am trying to preserve the state of Israel as a Jewish state," Eldad told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "I'm trying to struggle against both a post-Zionist trend and the trend of 'Islamization' of some citizens of Israel, who are saying we no longer need a Jewish state and that this should be a binational state of Jews and Muslims."

MK Ibrahim Sarsour, head of the United Arab List-Ta'al, said that he and other Arab activists will do everything possible to ensure that Eldad's "discriminatory" legislation package, if introduced, does not pass.

The legislation, Sarsour said, would lead to the exclusion of the Arab minority from the Israeli system, something the community "will not accept."

But even if it does pass, Sarsour said, "we will go on struggling within the limitations of Israeli law by peaceful means, [so] that Israel will be a state of all its citizens, not a Jewish state or a state of the Jewish community" in which Arabs are "simply a passing minority."

Most Arab leaders are against making military or civilian service mandatory for Israeli Arabs, saying they want to create their own non-state mechanisms to serve their communities.

Eldad plans to reveal details of the package during a public conference he is hosting in Jerusalem on Sunday, entitled "Facing Jihad."

The seminar at the Begin Heritage Center, which he says aims to educate Israelis about "the true nature of Islam," will feature speakers such as writer Daniel Pipes and Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who will screen his controversial film Fitna, which aims to demonstrate that the Koran encourages hatred of and violence against non-Muslims.

Meanwhile, the primary for Hatikva was held on Tuesday. The secular Zionist party, according to its Web site, aims "to return redemptive Zionism to the center stage of the Jewish state" and believes that "the Land of Israel is the exclusive inheritance of the Jewish people."

Results of the primary were not available by press time.
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