(IsraelNN.com) Security services suspect that former MK Azmi Bishara, a fugitive living abroad accused of providing aid to Hizbullah, is intent on recruiting agents for the Lebanese terrorist group among Israeli Arabs.
[The GSS] invited activist members of the Balad party... and warned them against contact with Bishara.

In recent days, agents of the General Security Services (GSS) invited activist members of the Balad party from Wadi Ara to the agency's offices and warned them against contact with Bishara. Balad was led by Bishara until his flight from the country in 2007.

A member of the Arab Coordinating Committee, Ashraf Kortam, was also questioned by security services about his relationship with Bishara. He was asked to sign a statement agreeing to avoid all future contact with the fugitive Arab politician. Kortam refused, calling the demand "illegal."

The statement Kortam was asked to sign said, in part, "The undersigned was warned by the GSS that any meeting with Bishara may be with the goal of recruitment into activities on behalf of the Hizbullah, even if that is not the purpose of the meeting."

A lawyer from the Civil Rights Association, Sonia Boulos, called the demand to sign a commitment not to meet with Bishara "an open and illegal attempt at intimidation." Regarding the fugitive Arab leader, Boulos said he is "a political leader and an intellectual who has not been convicted of any wrongdoing.... It is our right to maintain contact and meetings with our national and political leadership."

In a related report, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper noted police concerns that Bishara will also attempt to recruit Arab youths in Israel into the ranks of the Hizbullah.

Bishara Was on Hizbullah Payroll
According to security officials, then-MK Bishara received several hundred thousand dollars from Hizbullah for delivering intelligence information during the Second Lebanon War Lebanon in the summer of 2006. He is accused of handing over information about strategic locations to enable Hizbullah to strike at them during the war. He is also suspected of stealing millions of shekels from Arab aid organizations, laundering the money through eastern Jerusalem money-changers, one of whom has reportedly turned state's witness.

Bishara allegedly received envelopes full of cash, with one such envelope containing $50,000 in cash, which he deposited in a Jordanian bank. Officials did not reveal from which country the money came. In return for the cash, Bishara used his connections in Israel and with foreign countries to deliver intelligence information and to estimate government changes in policy during the war.

Bishara was also allegedly in touch with intelligence agents from other unnamed countries.

On March 3, Bishara met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, where the two discussed "the catastrophic situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and the ongoing Israeli carnage of the Palestinian
Bishara was also allegedly in touch with intelligence agents from other unnamed countries.
people," according to the Syrian news agency SANA. Bishara is considered a favorite of Arab talk shows and has appeared many times on the Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV station.

Israel Still Paying Bishara's Knesset Pension
In September of 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that Israel's Interior Minister is authorized to revoke the citizenship of former Knesset Member Bishara. However, last week, reports emerged that the Knesset is still obligated to pay the man accused of being a Hizbullah agent a 400,000-shekel retirement package. This sum is in addition to his monthly pension payments of NIS 7,000, which he is slated to receive for the remainder of his life.

The Knesset was still able to deny Bishara two ex-MK benefits: an allowance for telephone expenses of NIS 8,406 and a free subscription to a daily newspaper.