ABSTRACT
Israeli political parties can be broadly labelled as Zionist, non-Zionist, or anti-Zionist. The most prominent anti-Zionist party is Rakah, Reshima Kommunistit Hadash (New Communist List). It is supported in the main by the Arab citizens of Israel, who form about one-sixth of the total population. 1 Not surprisingly, one of its leaders, Emile Touma, is the secretary of the Arab People’s Conference in support for the Palestine Revolution whose scheduled congress on 6 December 1980 was banned by the authorities. It was to have endorsed a manifesto, signed six months earlier, by thousands of Israeli Arabs, which called for equality for Arab citizens, and an Israeli-Arab peace on the basis of self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians, and urged the Israeli government to negotiate with the PLO on the subject of a Palestinian state. 2
