The process of revoking the citizenship of former Knesset Member Azmi Bishara is being held up by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who has failed to provide a legal opinion on the matter, according to former Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima). Bishara fled Israel after the Shin Bet Israel Security Agency interrogated him on suspicion that he had given Hizbullah advice on where to hit Israel with missiles during the Second Lebanon War.
Sheetrit provided the information in response to a parliamentary query by MK Danny Danon (Likud). Sheetrit told the Knesset plenum that during his term as Interior Minister, he initiated proceedings for the revocation of Bishar’s citizenship and asked the Shin Bet, as well as Mazuz, in his capacity as Legal Advisor to the Government, to provide him with their professional opinions on the planned move.
The law requires that the interior minister receive the opinions of both attorney general and Shin Bet on matters of revocation of citizenship, Sheetrit explained. But while the Shin Bet gave him their opinion on time, Mazuz has not done so until now, despite the fact that he (Sheetrit) reminded him “again and yet again,” the former minister said.
This lack of response by Mazuz has stalled the move to strip the renegade Arab politician’s citizenship, Sheetrit said.
MK Danon has asked the new Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, to continue Sheetrit’s actions and advance the process of taking away the former Balad party chief’s Israeli citizenship. In a letter written to Yishai on Sunday, Danon noted that several months ago, he began exerting pressure to revoke Bishara’s citizenship, for what he termed Bishara’s “betrayal of the State of Israel and his aid to the enemy during the Second Lebanon War.”
Danon explains in the letter that he filed a motion with the High Court on the Bishara matter, and the court ruled that “the responsibility for opening the process of removal of citizenship rests with the Minister of Interior.” Following that ruling, Danon filed the parliamentary question on the matter.
