JERUSALEM // An Arab nationalist party that has been hit by a wave of arrests for alleged financial fraud is also the Israeli party that most strongly challenges the Zionist ethos of the state.
Leaders of the Balad party say this is no coincidence and have accused the government of “political persecution” following the arrest of at least 36 of its members this week.
Police said they arrested 13 Balad members early on Wednesday after taking into custody 23 Balad leaders and activists on Sunday. A Balad source said 38 people had been arrested and that 35 were still in custody on Thursday. No charges have been brought yet.
Those in custody include party president Awad Abdul-Fatah and other senior leaders.
Police said the party officials were detained on suspicion of violating Israel’s party financing law by misrepresenting the origins of millions of shekels used to finance its operations.
Police said the suspicion of violations – including aggravated fraud and money laundering – was not based on politics but the result of a professional investigation. Balad’s three members of Knesset – Israel’s parliament – are not being investigated.
The party’s officials deny wrongdoing and say it has been singled out because it calls into question the legitimacy of Israel’s self-definition as a Jewish state.
“We are bringing the biggest challenge in political discourse with the idea that a Jewish state can never be a democracy. This didn’t exist before Balad,” said Sami Abu Shehadeh, a member of the party’s central committee and former councillor in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality.
“This idea has been very influential on the academic level, with people becoming much more critical, mainly abroad but also in Israel,” he said. “The huge discussion in Israel led by [prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that Arabs can’t just acknowledge Israel as a regular country but must acknowledge it as a Jewish state is mainly because of the challenges of the new political thought brought up by Balad and its leaders.”
Another reason the authorities are pursuing Balad is its support for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, said Mr Abu Shehadeh.
“The Israeli government is seeing it can’t continue with its lies and that the BDS campaign is getting stronger all the time. They see this as a threat to their work and their policies. We are part of all this criticism against occupation and discrimination,” he said.
“This is why we’re chased more [than other Arab parties].”
Balad is by far the most controversial party in Israel. Its legislators have been embroiled in controversies for acts seen by the Israeli right as provocative and disloyal.
Party founder Azmi Bishara fled Israel in 2007 while under investigation for allegedly passing information to Hizbollah during the fighting in Lebanon a year earlier. He lives in Qatar, where three Balad Knesset members met him in August 2014 during the Gaza war, causing outrage in Israel.
Last February, Balad MPs were suspended by the Knesset ethics committee after they met with families of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks and observed a moment of silence for them.
Hanin Zoabi, one the three Balad legislators elected to the Knesset in the March 2015 polls, touched off a wave of condemnation in November when she compared discriminatory laws and practices in Israel to Nazi policies before the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews.
“Balad is in principle the most nationalistic Arab party,” said Hebrew University political scientist Avraham Diskin. “Their stance is very extreme, more so than other Arab politicians who have criticism of the nature of Israel but not its very existence.”
In 1984, the Knesset passed a law requiring parties to not deny Israel’s nature as a “Jewish democratic state”. As a result, Balad was disqualified by the central elections committee several times from taking part in polls but the supreme court overturned the bans so that it did participate in the end. “They’re on the border of violating the law,” Mr Diskin said.
The arrests this week come nearly a year after authorities outlawed the northern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement, saying it threatened public order, incited violence and cooperated with Hamas. At the time, Arab Israeli leaders also charged that this was a political step and predicted it would pave the way for moves against other Arab groupings.
Masoud Ghanaym, a member of Knesset from the Joint List faction of which Balad is a component, predicted the arrests would make the party more popular.
“When the government persecutes a political party people identify with it,” he said.
Political analyst Wadie Abu Nassar said the arrests threatened to deepen the divide between Arabs and Jews in Israel.
"This has been controversial in the Arab community," Mr Abu Nassar, director of the International Centre for Consultations in Haifa, told the Jerusalem Post.
“Some say it seems they did something wrong but the overwhelming majority says most parties in Israel are not clean, why are they persecuting Balad?”
“I believe we’ll have serious trouble here,” he added. “Arabs and Jews are already in a broken relationship. The vast majority of Arabs, even those who dislike Balad, believe there is something stinky here.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
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Rating: 3/5
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
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3. Hajj
4. Shahada
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Torque 240Nm @ 1,400rpm 0-100kph: 9.2 seconds
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Fuel economy, combined 35.2L / 100km (est)
Match info
Champions League quarter-final, first leg
Liverpool v Porto, Tuesday, 11pm (UAE)
Matches can be watched on BeIN Sports
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
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On sale: Now
Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The%20specs
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What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
