The sudden disappearance of Arab MK Azmi Bishara continues to make waves.  A gag order has been placed over possible criminal charges that have been raised against him, while reports are rife that he plans to resign from the Knesset and never return to Israel.

Bishara, Chairman of the Balad Arab party, said Tuesday morning he had not yet reached a decision regarding resignation from the Knesset. "Israeli authorities are persecuting me, trying to frame me and inventing criminal charges against me," he said in a telephone call from his hotel in Amman, Jordan, according to news website NRG/Maariv. A fog of conflicting announcements continued to surround his political intentions.

The Nazareth-based Arabic language newspaper A-Sinara reported that Bishara will announce his resignation Tuesday, and that he has left Israel for good. The report says Bishara will announce the resignation on Al Jazeera TV, where he sometimes appears as a commentator.

However, Bishara's party denies the reports. According to Balad, Bishara will return to Israel "when he sees fit and in accordance with his plans." Balad confirms that Bishara's resignation has been on the table since last September and was never a secret. Bishara is well-known for his trips to Syria, an enemy country.

Attorney Said Nafa, a self-described Communist and a Druze Arab from the village of Beit Jann in the Upper Galilee, is next on the Balad party list to replace Bishara in the Knesset.  When recruited to the IDF at a young age, he refused to serve and sat in jail instead.

Bishara reportedly left Israel two weeks ago and returned for a few hours last Thursday to attend a wedding in Nazareth.

MK Effie Eitam (NU/NRP) has asked the Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee to convene an urgent session to discuss the Bishara affair. Eitam says the committee needs to find out if reports of Bishara's decision to leave Israel are true and if the decision is connected to a police investigation of him launched several months ago.

'Israeli authorities are trying to frame me and inventing criminal charges against me'

"Even as the [Second Lebanon] war raged, I warned that MK Bishara's visits to enemy countries, while thousands of Katyusha shells hit Israel's cities, constitute treason and endanger Israel's security," said Eitam.

MK Gilad Erdan (Likud) said, "It has now been conclusively proved that everything that has been said about Bishara's disloyalty is true. It is now clear why he 'lost it' when it was suggested he go serve in Syria's parliament." Erdan was referring to an incident in the Knesset between him and Bishara in which Bishara coarsely cursed Erdan.

Bishara visited Syria in September 2006, and warned that "Israel might launch a preliminary offensive in more than one place, in a bid to overcome the internal crisis in the country and in an attempt to restore its deterrence capability." He and members of his party also visited Lebanon and told the Lebanese prime minister that Hizbullah's resistance to Israel has "lifted the spirit of the Arab people." Soon thereafter, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation against Balad MKs Azmi Bishara, Jamal Zahalka and Wassel Taha.

Earlier this month, the Israel Law Center filed a petition in the Supreme Court claiming that Bishara and two other Arab MKs lost their Israeli citizenship - and thus their right to be Knesset Members - when they traveled to Syria last September.