DICKEY: You are on trial for a speech you made praising Hizbullah. Is that right?

BISHARA: I spoke about the right to resist occupation, and this was considered sympathetic to terrorism. I was always against targeting civilians. But Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, they don’t have the right to vote in the Knesset. They don’t have a democratic channel to express self-determination. Occupation is violent. Occupation deprives the Palestinian people not only of self-determination, but the elementary right to plan their lives every day, the most banal details. So what do you want the Palestinians to do?

U.S. President George Bush is saying he wants more democracy in Palestinian-controlled territory. And he says that can’t happen as long as Yasir Arafat runs the Palestinian Authority.

Most of the presidents and kings of the Middle East are not democratic but are close friends, it seems, of George Bush. And he speaks about them with sympathy. Yet he’s asking Palestinians–even before independence–to build a democracy? And these Arab governments to help? This is totally absurd.

So the Israelis have been better teachers of democracy?

Look, there is a margin for freedom of speech because there is a democracy in Israel. But this democracy was built on the ruins of my people, my state. Israel is a democracy, but it’s a Jewish democracy; that’s how it defines itself. They keep reminding us, “In this democracy, you are really a guest.”

Yet your own example is strong. You’re known as a democratic Arab politician throughout the Arab world.

You see an Arab member of the Knesset challenging [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon face to face. Well, this is tantalizing, and not only for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. With TV, now the whole Arab world sees us. The Arab world does ask, “How do you shout and say those things and challenge the Israeli minister, but you are not shot and nobody puts you in jail, at least not directly?” This, I can say, is having an effect.

What’s your vision of peace, real peace?

A two-state solution. Now. The Palestinian state is undermined daily. And by many things: by building settlements, by trying to cut its borders, measures to empty sovereignty of any real content. This will lead nowhere.

Everybody in the Arab world knows that Arafat is not a democrat and that Arafat is very corrupt. Behind the scenes, there are a lot of Arabs who think it would be great if they could get on building the kind of reforms you’re talking about.

The people around Yasir Arafat that George Bush and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and others say can bring this reform about, they’re part of the system of Yasir Arafat, and they will not be better than him. OK. Arafat is not a democrat. But how about the [Palestinian] Legislative Council? Why can’t it be convened? The Legislative Council is elected. You can’t get a better, a more representative, institution. Why are we looking for persons [to build the future]? Why not institutions? But it’s not done because the Legislative Council can’t be convened because the movements of its members are restricted in Gaza to Gaza, in Ramallah to Ramallah, in Hebron to Hebron. They are insulted at the checkpoints like any other citizens.

How do you see Arafat’s future?

Arafat’s future depends on his own decision. Since the Oslo accords, he built his tactics on the possibility of “partnership” with the U.S. and Israel. If that’s still his bet, then he’s doomed, since once Israel declared that he is not a partner, the rest is details. Arafat has to decide whether he’s going to build his strategy around the idea of a state in the making, or of a national liberation movement. He tried to have both, and he’s now faced with the danger he’ll lose both.

Do “targeted killings” like that of the Hamas military leader affect efforts to build democracy?

What Israel did in Gaza only leads to a politics of revenge.