Balad party chairman Azmi Bishara, a former Christian academic from Nazareth, tendered his resignation from the Knesset (Israeli parliament) at Israel's embassy in Cairo on Sunday, ending days of speculation concerning his intentions.

His resignation sparked celebrations among far-right parliamentarians who have sought his ouster for years.

Unnamed police sources told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper that Bishara would be arrested should he return to Israel and may be declared a "fugitive from justice." This followed the partial lifting of a court-imposed gag-order on police allegations against the Balad leader on Wednesday.

The likely indictments - which stem from a visit he and Balad lawmakers made to Syria and Lebanon in September - include passing information to the enemy; money-laundering charges relating to funds received from foreign sources; contacting a foreign agent; and providing assistance to an enemy at a time of war, for which Bishara could face life imprisonment.

ISN Security Watch spoke to Balad second-in-command Jamal Zahalkha concerning the trip. While acknowledging that the visit was illegal, Zahalkha made it clear that the delegates did not meet Hizbollah representatives and that, in his opinion, accusations that the trip provided succors to the enemy were completely baseless.

All three Balad lawmakers were questioned by police on their return to Israel. It had appeared, until recently, that police were shy of risking a high-publicity trial given the unlikelihood of conviction.

Fighting had ended in southern Lebanon the month before the visit and, according to all reports, the lawmakers merely provided their impressions of social, political and security trends in Israel in discussions with their hosts. Israeli-Arab parliamentarians rarely sit on Knesset committees dealing with security issues.

It now appears unlikely that Bishara will follow through on his earlier pledge to return to Israel. On Thursday, he told Nazareth's Radio Shams, "We do not believe that in this atmosphere of incitement [...] we will have a fair trial."

Bishara has been the dominant figure within the secular Arab nationalist Balad party since its formation in 1995. He has played a key role in promoting a new discursive trend that has superseded traditional rights-based appeals with demands for state recognition of Arab-Israelis' full national rights.

Balad has focused on this community's links to the wider Arab nation and Palestinian people while demanding that Israel's definition as a Jewish and democratic state is replaced by a state for all its citizens.

Bishara became the first anti-Zionist candidate to run for the premiership in 1999, dropping out at the last minute to assure the victory of Labor candidate Ehud Barak.

In 2002, Bishara was indicted for knowingly assisting Israelis to visit Syria and expressing support for a terrorist organization - Hizbollah - which the Supreme Court found was covered by parliamentary immunity.

The party was initially banned from running in the 2003 parliamentary poll on the basis of a new law establishing that all parties seeking election to the Knesset must recognize the Jewish nature of the state. The electoral commission decision was overturned on appeal.

His recent decision to leave the country ahead of the filing of charges may well have sunk Balad, which only just passed the 1.5 percent threshold for parliamentary representation in the 2006 election.

Party officials have reportedly held talks with their counterparts in the hard-left Arab-Jewish Hadash party, which may lead to a resumed political alliance.

This would likely bolster the chances that the Ra'am party, dominated by the southern wing of the Islamic Movement, will emerge in coming years as the preeminent political voice of Arab-Israelis.

The Islamic Movement in Israel is divided, with its parliamentarians tending to take more moderate positions than other regional Muslim Brotherhood offshoots.

Nonetheless, the likely transition from secular to religious political predominance has major repercussions, primarily for Arab-Israeli society, but also for efforts at bridging the widening abyss between this community and the Jewish majority.

The 2006 national election saw the confirmation of a rapid and fundamental shift in Jewish-Israeli political opinion on the future of the Arab minority toward positions previously held by the radical right.

Benefiting from public disenchantment with the settlers and the conservative Likud party, Yisrael Beiteinu won 11 seats on a platform dominated by a plan to transfer Arab communities near the 1948 ceasefire line to a future Palestinian state.

The plan is designed to secure a large Jewish majority in Israel in perpetuity through what proponents call land transfers, and critics decry as ethnic cleansing.

Bishara's apparent decision not to face his accusers has been interpreted by some analysts as eliminating a key point of friction.

However, his flight removes a key figure, and perhaps an entire party, with the authority to express the concerns and desires of liberal, secular Arab-Israelis on the future of the state, from the political stage.

With polls showing Arab-Israelis disenchanted with largely symbolic government efforts to address systematic funding and planning inequalities, and the Jewish majority doubting the possibilities for future cohabitation, momentum appears to be building for a major confrontation.