The Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) on Thursday filed a petition to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to order the Shin Bet to stop efforts to block what the group called legitimate political activity. The request comes in response to a letter the Shin Bet sent last week to a journal published by the predominantly Arab Balad party, warning that it would foil the activity of anyone seeking to harm Israel's Jewish or democratic character, even if that activity was carried out by legal means.

That letter came in response to a complaint filed by the journal, Fasal al-Makal, to the Prime Minister's Office, after the publication a week earlier in the mass-circulation daily Maariv of remarks by Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin describing Israeli Arabs as a "security threat" in a closed-door conversation with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Four documents have been released recently by organizations representing the Arab sector calling for a revision of the state's character: the Musawa organization's Ten Points, the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee's Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the Adalah organization's Democratic Constitution and the yet-unpublished Haifa Treaty.

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The ACRI's letter indicated that the position of the Shin Bet that is authorized to curtail activity not explicitly prohibited by law "undermines the foundations of democracy and reflects a basic lack of understanding of its character."

"The attempt by the Shin Bet to define the rules of the democratic game once again is a serious violation of the rule of law," it said.

The letter also said that the concept of freedom is a preeminent value of democracy, and from it derives the principle that all that is not explicitly prohibited must as such be permitted.

The ACRI claimed that it is the Arab public's right to express its collective identity.

"If Israel's Palestinian citizens believe that the definition of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people alone, or as the Jewish state, harms their right to be equal citizens in the country, they are permitted to take that position and to express it in any manner not explicitly prohibited by law," the letter said.