News Brief

A fugitive former Israeli Arab lawmaker suspected of treason and espionage compared himself to Alfred Dreyfus. In a Los Angeles Times Op-Ed Thursday, Azmi Bishara called his situation “an ironic twist reminiscent of France’s Dreyfus affair,” in which a Jewish officer was wrongfully convicted of treason and later exonerated. Bishara, who is suspected of giving Hezbollah intelligence and material support during last summer’s war, recently resigned his Knesset position from abroad, where he continues to evade Israeli law enforcement. In his defense he wrote that “unlike those in Israel’s Parliament who have been involved in acts of violence, I have never used violence or participated in wars.” Later in the same article he lauded Palestinians and Lebanese who “resist Israel’s illegal military occupation” as “those who fight for freedom.”