Last update - 00:00 03/03/2008
Arab ex-MK Azmi Bishara meets Syrian President in Damascus
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent
Former Arab MK Azmi Bishara on Monday met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus.
The Syrian news agency SANA reported that the two discussed "the catastrophic situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and the ongoing Israeli carnage of the Palestinian people."
Officials in Bishara's Balad party said that he will appear Monday night as a panelist on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel, and offer his analysis of recent events on the Palestinian and Lebanese fronts. Bishara is considered a favorite of Arab talk shows, and has appeared many times on the channel.
Bishara, a fiery nationalist Arab lawmaker, left Israel about a year ago after Israeli media outlets speculated that a police investigation could lead to charges against him that include providing enemy with information at a time of war, visiting an enemy country and bringing money illegally into the state of Israel.
Police and Shin Bet security service claimed that during the Second Lebanon War Bishara provided Hezbollah with classified information, including prospective targets and Israel's retaliation if Hezbollah had used long-range missiles that would hit south of Haifa.
He has since settled in Jordan and has engaged mainly in writing and giving lectures in the Arab world. He keeps in close contact with Balad activists, who visit him frequently in his Amman residence.
A few months ago an East Jerusalem money changer was indicted for money laundering allegedly for transferring $390,000 from an unnamed Arab country the exiled Arab MK.
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