The decision adopted by the Knesset on March 1, 2000 - by a majority of 60 against 53 - to pass at a preliminary reading of a bill which would condition the passing of a referendum on a future peace treaty with Syria (which necessitates retreat from the Golan Heights) upon a special majority of over 50 percent of all registered eligible voters is a very grave racist and anti-democratic decision. Moreover, it is another obstacle on the way to achieve a peace treaty with Syria and Lebanon. This, in spite of the present fact that the matter is about a preliminary reading of a bill, the passing of which through all necessary phases of legislature is quite doubtful.

The meanwhile adoption of this bill represents a racist decision, because if becoming law would, in fact, prevent the Arab population of Israel from influencing with their votes the outcome of the referendum according to their part of the general population (approximately 18 percent). The means by which this would be effected is the artificial provision that not a simple majority of votes polled, but only a majority of over 50 percent of the registered eligible voters would be needed for endorsement of the treaty at the referendum.

The initiators of this bill tabled it because they felt that without the artificial deficiencies they ask to introduce in this legislation, a clear majority for a peace treaty with Syria would be achieved at the referendum, if and when such a treaty will be achieved. Precisely therefore, they attempt to create such a condition which does not exist in any other country of the world, i.e., that the results of the referendum would not be decided by a majority, or a minority of the factual voters at the polls, but also by those who refrain from voting, the votes of whom would be automatically added to those who vote against the endorsement of the treaty. Among those votes counted would be also those from hundred of thousands of Israeli citizens, eligible voters, who are permanently living abroad.

The adoption by the Knesset of this bill at the preliminary reading represents a heavy blow to the coalition of PM Ehud Barak, showing that a considerable part of it, in fact, is opposed to the peace process, as well as being smitten by severe racist attitudes. At the same time, it is too early yet to speak of a soon end to the Barak coalition, as some of the Likud leaders are talking about.

The latest crisis in the wake of the above mentioned Knesset decision should be seen as a result of mistaken positions of Ehud Barak, who, on the eve of his election, promised to put any peace accord he would achieve before a popular referendum. There was no cause to such an obligation, since the elections to the Knesset themselves could be seen as a referendum, at which a clear majority of the voters unequivocally voted for the peace process. Moreover, there exists no right whatsoever to hold a referendum about the future of an occupied territory, which belongs to another state and another nation, such as the Syrian Golan Heights, southern Lebanon, or the still occupied Palestinian territories

We have to point out that not only the nationalist right-wing opposition in Israel is creating obstacles before continuing the peace process. The main obstacle, so far, is the Barak government itself, the position of which is holding up in a grave manner the continuation of the peace process with Syria and Lebanon, as well as with the Palestinians. Barak is not implementing the accords and obligations, he has to fulfill in accordance with the agreements signed at the Wye Plantation and Sharm-a-Sheik, the necessity of which arose because of Barak's non-implementation of former accords. All this is a political design, the aim of which is to dictate by force to the Palestinians such unacceptable conditions, the meaning of which is to perpetuate the occupation of most of the Palestinian West Bank territories as well as a large portion of the Gaza Strip.

The Barak cabinet caused also a sharp escalation of the situation at the northern border with Lebanon in the wake of the barbaric air strikes against civil sections of the infrastructure in Lebanon, including destroying power plants in the vicinity of Beirut and Tripoli, hitting innocent civilians and causing grave economic damage.

The Barak cabinet could not even cite its usual excuse to execute these criminal acts as having been retaliation for katyusha rocket attacks upon Israeli settlements in the north, simply because there had been no such attacks. The brutal air-strikes were executed as an answer to the fact, that in the framework of the legitimate struggle by Lebanese people for the liberation of their homeland from Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon more Israeli army personnel had been killed. After this, the Barak cabinet threatened to turn barbaric air terror and shelling into a permanent norm. This criminal threat was echoed by sharp response by the Arab states and peoples, as well as from world-wide public opinion. One of the expressions of international solidarity with the Lebanese people was the historic visit of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Beirut, the first visit of an Egyptian President to Lebanon since 1953.

Extraordinary conspicuously had been the mad and unprecedented threats against Lebanon made by Foreign Minister David Levy during February, never heard before from the lips of a Foreign Minister. Among other things, he threatened to burn the soil of Lebanon, and added (in the February 23 Knesset session) to kill children: “blood for blood, soul for soul, and child for child...”. David Levy consigned too unprecedented threats against the Arab Knesset Members in particular, and the Arab population of Israel in general. It must be noted as most severe that PM Barak not only did not censor Levy's threats, but even backed them.

Levy's threats and Barak's backing them did in no way deter the Lebanese who fight against the Israeli occupation forces and their mercenaries of the so-called "South Lebanese Army" (SLA). Undeterred, they continue these days their wide-scaled resistance struggle. Fighting against occupation of their homeland is not terrorism, but a legitimate national liberation struggle. The responsibility for all the victims of this struggle fells upon the shoulders of those who obstinately hold on to the occupation, while even escalating barbaric military onslaughts against the country they occupy territories of which.

The Israeli Communist Forum demands to immediately dismiss the war and blood mongering Foreign Minister David Levy. We demand too to get the Israeli occupation army out of Lebanon and retreat to the international border. This, and only this would stop more Israeli soldiers from being killed there, as well as victimizing innocent civilians in that neighboring country. The best way to execute this would be in the framework of a comprehensive peace accord with Syria and Lebanon, which includes Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to the lines of June 4, 1967.

One should not forget, however, that the core of the Israeli-Arab conflict was, and still is, the Israeli-Palestinian one. Not to achieve a peaceful solution to this conflict, creates perils of a new war conflagration in our region. We demand from the Barak government to implement without further delay all the obligations signed in former accords with the Palestinians, including the continuation of the re-deployments, i.e., retreat from more Palestinian territories, as well as the release of all Palestinian political prisoners. We also demand to immediately stop the expropriation of Palestinian land, the evictions, the destruction of homes, as well as setting up new Jewish settlements on robbed Palestinian soil and the expansion of existing ones.

A final peace settlement with the Palestinians can be achieved solely on the basis of the establishment of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the cofwhich will be eastern Jerusalem, alongside Israel within its border lines of pre-1967. The achievement of a just and lasting peace treaty on this basis lies in the very interests of the Israeli people, as well as of all the peoples of the region.