The New York Times
September 10, 2002
JERUSALEM, Sept. 9 - An Israeli Arab accused of aiding a suicide bomber was stripped of
his citizenship today by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the first time such a measure has
been taken against an Israeli accused of a security offense.
The suspect, Nihad Abu Kishk, has been indicted on charges of membership in the militant
group Hamas and driving a suicide bomber to Kfar Sava for an attack last year, in which
a doctor was killed. The Interior Ministry said he had not been convicted.
Civil rights advocates called Mr. Yishai's move an act of discrimination against Israel's
one million Arab citizens, noting that no Israeli Jew convicted of a serious security
offense had ever been stripped of citizenship. "The minister's approach is that the
citizenship of the Arabs is second class", said Dan Yakir, a lawyer for the Association
for Civil Rights in Israel.
Mr. Yishai's action followed the recent arrest of several Israeli Arabs accused of helping
Palestinian attackers, part of a steady increase in such incidents during the two-year-old
Palestinian uprising. The number of Israeli Arabs involved in the violence remains marginal,
but the arrests have revived fears in Israel that Arab citizens could be a potential fifth
column.
In a statement announcing his decision Mr. Yishai said he believed that "such steps will
deter others" and that they were "not intended to cast a stain on the general population
of Arab citizens of Israel, who are loyal to the state".