Former Arab-Israeli MK who fled Israel for Qatar after allegedly spying for Hezbollah reportedly sent suitcases of cash back to the Arab-Israeli Balad party to cover its mounting debts.

By World Israel News Staff

An Arab party in the Knesset received millions of shekels in cash smuggled into the country by a former lawmaker suspected of spying for a terrorist organization, Israel Hayom reported Wednesday.

In 2007, Azmi Bishara, then an MK for the Arab nationalist party Balad, fled Israel, eventually taking up residence in Qatar.

Bishara posted his resignation as a Member of the Knesset from the Israeli Embassy in Egypt, after being accused of spying on behalf of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization.

According to newly published information obtained by Israel Hayom, it appears that the Balad party maintained ties with the disgraced former MK for years after his departure from Israel.

After moving to Qatar, Bishara reportedly funneled 2 million shekels ($600,000) to party officials, smuggling the cash into Israel through stuffed suitcases.

Investigators suspected the party’s leadership of fraud, the report said, when it was discovered that Balad had rapidly paid off its 2.5 million shekel debt in 2013.

Thirteen party officials and activists linked to Balad were arrested in 2012 and 2013 while attempting to smuggle cash-filled suitcases into Israel from Jordan, thanks in part to Erez Ofir, who exposed the fraud.

“I have been auditing factions for years, and I have never come across such a serious case,” Ofir testified. “I noticed that all the donations are in the amounts of two thousand shekels and more. In my experience, such amounts are not donated. This made me suspect that this was a fictitious registration of donations.”

While Balad claimed that the money had been raised from local donors, police found that the alleged donors listed in the party’s receipts denied having ever given money to Balad and insisted that their signatures were forged.

The 13 suspects arrested in the case were convicted as part of a plea bargain in October of last year.

Among those convicted last October was former MK Hanin Zoabi

The party denied Wednesday’s report, calling it an “attempt to tarnish the party and its members.”

“This is political persecution. The attorney’s office retracted all the accusations and signed a plea agreement. At no point in the case was Balad founder Azmi Bashara’s name linked to what happened, and the attempt to do so is baseless. The involved Balad members acted for the benefit of the party’s public goals, and none of them made personal profit.”

The post Former Israeli MK, spying for Hezbollah, funneled money to Arab party appeared first on World Israel News.

Iranians loyal to the mullahs applauded Former Minister Segev, charged with spying for the Islamic Republic, while regime opponents denounced him as a traitor. 

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The hashtag #FreeGonenSegev has been tweeted around 4,500 times in Iran since news broke Monday about the former Israeli minister of energy and infrastructure’s indictment for espionage in the pay of the Islamic republic, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Naturally, many of the social media campaigners supported Segev for working for their country, with one asking the international community to “intervene” on his behalf and another boasting that this achievement will help “bring down Israel from within.”

Others mocked Israel, as one @Moheqqq wrote: “Hey @netanyahu. Let’s play a game. 1 in 5 israel ministers is an Iran agent. Try and find them. Good luck! You have 48 hours. And to show you we are serious. You have 24 hours.”

However, anti-regime activists seemed just as angry as Israeli citizens upon hearing the news that the Shin Bet had arrested the highest-ranking Jew ever to be accused of assisting the enemy in a time of war, spying against the State of Israel and providing intelligence to the enemy.

“Those who serve the Ayatollahs deserve death, just as they execute those accused of spying in Iran,” said one tweet.

In related news, Channel 10 reported Tuesday that Segev admitted to the Shin Bet that he had contact with the Iranians, but not in order to work against his country.

“I wanted to fool the Iranians and come back to Israel a hero,” the report quoted him as saying during his interrogation.

He also denied having given his handlers any classified information.

Considering that he was a minister for less than two years over 20 years ago, it would seem logical that any secret intelligence he might have known at the time would have been outdated by the time the Iranians allegedly first recruited him in Nigeria in 2012.

Still, he could have given Israel’s sworn enemy useful information regarding Israel’s energy sector and the way the government and security services work in general as well as personal information about officials still employed in relevant positions. As there is a gag order on most of the case, however, the exact suspicions against Segev are not yet known.

The only other Knesset member to have been accused of spying for an enemy was Azmi Bishara, the founder of the Arab Balad party who fled Israel in 2007 after reports surfaced that he had spied for the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organization, Hezbollah, during the Second Lebanon War the year before. Bishara now lives in Qatar and is close to the ruling family of the state, according to AFP.

The post Iranians tweet both for and against suspected Israeli spy appeared first on World Israel News.