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Right. So welcome, everybody, to the first meeting of the Israel Studies seminar this term.

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My name is Lisa Simon and I'm going to be convening a seminar with Professor Yaakov Guy.

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And today, we're very excited to host our first speaker. So to the Rosemary, we'll be talking about the Islamic movement in Israel.

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And there's an assistant professor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the university in Dubai.

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And she has been teaching there since 2015. She obtained her Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies from university in Oslo in 2008,

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and she also holds an amnesty in Hebrew and Jewish studies from Oxford.

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So welcome back to Oxford. Her research is focussed on collective identity formation and religio political and cultural movements by

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and for Israeli Jews from the Middle East and North Africa and by and for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

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So we'll hear from two then and we'll have obviously some time for questions and answers over time.

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Great. Thank you so much. And thank you both for arranging this and welcoming me here.

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I was also going to say thank you to someone from the Middle East Centre for hosting me if.

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But now I've said it on the record. So I think that it is a pleasure to be back here 20 years after I started my amnesty in Hebrew and Jewish studies.

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And then, as we have been discussing my early research focus on the generally lesser known Mizrahi Jews.

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And today I'm speaking also about something which is generally lesser known,

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which is the Islamic movement in Israel for and by a lesser known part of the Palestinian population or a people,

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which is Palestinian citizens of Israel.

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So the Islamic movement in Israel was established in the early 1980s.

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My analysis of this movement is based on ethnographic research,

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composed of mostly interviews, observations, and they were conducted between 2008 and 2021.

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And then the last couple of years, because of COVID, it was via Zoom or email.

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So in this analysis, I had purposefully used a very sort of contextualised approach.

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So I have studied and interpreted my observations of this movement and its activists and its supporters within their social,

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political, cultural and religious reality.

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So I believe that the context explains why a particular Islamist movement has developed in the way that it has,

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basically sort of how it became what it is today.

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So this movement's leaders, they operate between what we can say is two main points of reference.

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There's the Israeli state and society in which it operates.

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And then it is the Islamist ideology that informs its methodology and approach.

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So as other Islamist groups, this movement is also inspired by and aims to infuse here in theory,

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the state and in practise the society with Islam interpreted to fit modern circumstances.

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As a U be explained. Islamist wants a cultural revolution inspired by religious sources,

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and that this is in part a reaction to the westernisation of their Muslim rulers and politics.

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Now, of course, in the case of the Palestinian Islamists in Israel, the rulers are the government of the Jewish Israeli state,

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and the state represents them both the political domination and westernisation.

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So I argue that in the case of the Islamic movement in Israel, Islamism is not only an ideology and methodology for cultural advancement and renewal,

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but it is also a variant of a Palestinian political nationalism.

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So the Islamic movement in Israel is fighting for its rights as a Palestinian national minority group, using an Islamist approach and methodology.

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And this is very evident in their trifecta of goals, which is to protect the Palestinian people,

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protect the Palestinian land, and protect the Palestinian holy sites from the foreign Jewish state.

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And I will describe these specific goals in detail in a short line.

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So I argue that Islamist groups and movements are never the same as each case.

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Then of course it's influenced by and somehow accommodated to its particular context.

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And this might seem very obvious to us, but actually it's conducting contextualised analysis, particularly of Islamist groups.

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And movement is very important because and significantly too often Islamist movements are seen as a general expression of an ideology

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or practise cutting across place and time without appreciations of the nuances and local reasoning for their individual development.

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So in this case, the context, of course, an Israeli state and society, and this, of course,

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has naturally and tremendously influenced the development of this particular movement,

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both in terms of providing opportunities and in terms of imposing limitations.

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My analysis aims to explain how then the leaders and activists of this movement take advantage of the possibilities provided,

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as well as navigate the limitations provided by this context,

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and also how they then interpret and instrumentalize the Islamist theory and practise in pursuit of their particular aims.

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So therefore, it's important to start with a brief description of the predicament and situation of Palestinian citizens in Israel.

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So Palestinian citizens of Israel are the descendants of the about 150,000 Palestinians who remained into in what became the state of Israel in 1948.

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Today, there are approximately 1.4 and 1.6 million people.

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Or you can say that they make up around 20% of the Israeli population.

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And so their inferior position in this state as non-Jewish Arab Palestinian citizens as very well documented.

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And they are described by both academics and by Israeli, as well as international NGOs,

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as second class citizens who are treated unequally in almost every respect when compared to the state's non-Jewish citizens.

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In addition, they're considered to be a potential internal threat due to their Arab Palestinian identity.

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So for example, according to the legal human rights organisation Adalah,

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they face indirect and direct discrimination in the legal system and in governmental practises.

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This is obviously become even more pronounced after the Jewish nation state law,

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which was introduced in 2018, which formally made Palestinian citizens second class citizens.

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So it is within the boundaries and opportunities afforded as citizens of Israel and the limitations

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imposed by this political system that the Islamic movement has developed and is conducting its activism.

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The. So this Islamic movement is established by leaders who are educated in West Bank,

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Islamic colleges that became available to them after Israel occupied these areas, as well as other areas as a consequence of the 1967 war.

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So this war, as we know, had negative consequences for Palestinians in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip,

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but it also had unintended and surprisingly positive consequences for Palestinian citizens.

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Why? Because from 1948 till 1967, Palestinian citizens were living under a military rule which had included a lot of restrictions,

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such as curfews not being allowed to organise politically, as well as restrictions on employment opportunities.

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And in addition,

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it meant that they were isolated from the Arab world generally and from their Palestinian brethren who were in particularly in the West Bank,

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in the Gaza Strip, or in any other Arab country as Arab countries considered enemy states of Israel.

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So after 1967, Palestinians from inside Israel suddenly gained access to both the people and the institutions in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

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So the former head of the southern branch of the Islamic movement done very little talk about the branch branching later.

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Ibrahim Sassoon, he described the result of the 1967 war as the beginning of the Arab population inside Israel,

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despite the devastating military defeat for the Arab states and the ensuing occupation.

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So this was because from then on, Palestinians from inside Israel could go to the West Bank, also the Gaza Strip,

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and access Islamic and Arab educational institutions and culture that they had so far been been prohibited to access.

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So then we had young men and some women who went there,

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got educated and returned to their towns and villages inside Israel, and they began to provide study circles.

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They give sermons, and they kind of started what was the grassroots beginning of the Islamic Awakening,

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which led to the Islamic movement inside Israel.

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And so it is in the early 1970s that we can observe the beginning of the small,

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religious, grassroot oriented initiatives that grew into the movement that we know today.

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The focus then was on Dawah, sort of spreading their version of Islam for first of the individuals,

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then the larger communities, and then, you know, they hope the society at large.

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So the aim was to strengthen the faith and observance of the individual and the sort

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of practise and observance of the Palestinian Muslim community inside Israel then.

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So I would I say that in 1988, we know that in 1983, Abdullah Darwish founded the movement as we know it today.

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Some people would say the movement started earlier. Some people would have another date.

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But this is a date that I think is the best to use as the starting point of the institutionalisation of the Islamic movement in Israel.

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And he started as explicitly as a non-violent and countrywide socio cultural political movement.

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So as I mentioned earlier, there's this trifecta of goals.

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So the three goals are focussed on protection.

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So protection of people, protection of land and protection of religious sites,

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mainly inside Israel, but also in the occupied East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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So let me talk first then about people.

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So the Palestinian Islamic movement in Israel, they assist Palestinian citizens in many diverse charity campaigns to supply school materials,

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food, financial support for orphans, widows, many other type of initiatives.

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And also,

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they focus on generally sort of improving the services for Palestinian citizens that are not provided such effects satisfactorily by the state.

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So they do this on a local level through local councils or via the movement's many social and cultural organisations.

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So they run kindergartens, food distribution to poor families,

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educational organisations that offer tutoring to complement the national school

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system or to provide them with the training to get into the university.

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As you would know, it's really difficult to pass the university entry exams.

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They provide income for single parents and also social and cultural organisations for, you know, spare time and free time activities.

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So in addition to facing legal restrictions, loss of land and properties and lack of equal opportunities,

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as many other representatives of the Palestinian citizens, the Islamic movement, also consider Palestinian citizens.

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So is it around this sort of protection to be under real physical danger?

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So protection of people goes to sort of taking care of them in their everyday life,

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as well as actually potentially or addressing their danger that they face that they consider to be physical dangers.

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So when I interviewed both leaders and activists of the Islamic movement,

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they typically will focus then on what they perceive as dangerous towards Palestinian citizens, including the threat of population transfer.

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This is a method to deal with the idea that Palestinian citizens constitute a demographic

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threat to the Jewish state and is promoted by right wing Israeli politicians.

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And they talked about the reality of the anti-Arab discourse, such as demonstrations in Jerusalem this fall,

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where people were shouting Death to Arabs or this is also regularly chanted at football games.

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Politicians such as Benjamin Netanyahu talk about the threat of the Arab voters or any many politicians to talk.

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Israeli politicians will talk about Arab politicians as traitors.

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So it's sort of that on the discourse level. Then they also mention the dangers of the violent actions by group of Jewish citizens.

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For example, they mention the 2008 Akka riots or the 2014 so called violent price target crimes,

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which was both against individual Palestinians and also against Palestinian property.

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Another and important element which was highlighted in these conversations was the police violence,

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especially after the killing of 13 Palestinian citizens by Israeli police in the early days of the second intifada in 2000.

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So the Islamic movement then works alongside and sometimes in collaboration with other organisation that represents

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Palestinian citizens to prevent these threats or assist Palestinian citizens kind of after after any of,

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you know, any of these events. So victims mainly such as rebuilding houses or repairing properties after destruction.

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And in practise, what they do is that they use this Islamist idea where you volunteer your not just sort of you know,

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you don't just contribute zakat, but you support the organisation by volunteering your time and your expertise.

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So for example, when they were rebuilding houses, some a lot of people would come just to kind of contribute with their manpower.

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But the guy who was the engineer would come in and build a house and the person who had the bulldozer would drive a long way with this bulldozer to,

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you know, so it's all for free. And also the volunteer work camp type ideology, which is very grassroot.

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In addition, the movement also focuses on the 400,000 or so Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem who are residents but not citizens of Israel.

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This group is under increasing political as well as socio economic pressure.

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They are cut off from their Palestinian natural set of Palestinian communities in the West Bank due to the separation wall and the checkpoint system.

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And so to improve their financial situation, the Islamic movement encourages its supporters from inside Israel.

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We could say to go shopping and use the restaurants in East Jerusalem to provide needed income for this group.

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This is tied to to my next point of protection of the religious sites.

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So how it works is that one of the things that is important to the Islamic movement is that on a on a weekly,

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if not daily basis, Palestinians pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque.

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Let's talk more in detail about the Al-Aqsa mosque soon.

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But one of the things they do is to provide free bus services from almost any Palestinian, local, village,

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town or city inside Israel to take and bring them to Jerusalem so they can go and pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque, but also shopping in East Jerusalem.

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So sort of combines the two goals in one.

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So the protection of religious sites then obviously focussed on Al-Aqsa.

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In addition, they try to document and as well as to challenge the what has been done and

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the consistent demolition and other uses of religious property inside Israel.

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So for example, there are some mosques that have been turned into other purpose building, such as even a nightclub in Tel Aviv.

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So the Islamic movement would then challenge this in the court.

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And so to try to uphold the religious properties and identities of these places of worship.

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They also protect and document Palestinian graveyards operated since 1948, where also they have been now re zoned for other purposes.

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And then, of course, the Al-Aqsa. So the Al-Aqsa is the way that the Islamic movement sees it under the threat of threat from Israeli security forces,

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from right wing Israeli politicians and religious and settler groups,

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and especially the so-called temple movement that is working to rebuild the temple and to change the status quo.

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Established in 1967 that preserves the right to pray on the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif to Muslims.

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Now, as this mosque, of course, is the third holiest site in Islam by acting as its guardians,

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the Islamic movement also positions itself at one of the religious centres of not just the Muslim,

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but also the Muslim, but also then, of course, the Jewish world as it borders the Wailing Wall.

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So the movement is active in the actual upkeep of the mosque, physically, practically.

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And also once every year the movement arranges a festival because the Al-Aqsa is in Danger Festival.

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It's not a fun festival that way. We think of festivals, but it's a gathering, so they ignore them.

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Branch. We'll talk more about the branches later, but the Northern Branch would have yearly one in there in one farm until 2015.

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They would hold speeches and rally support for the continued protection of the mosque.

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And this festival is every year attended also by Christian clerics and representatives of other groups that represents Palestinian citizens of Israel.

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It is not just an Islamic movement. I mean, this is not a movement initiated initiative,

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but it is supported by a broader segment of the Palestinian, both inside Israel and in East Jerusalem.

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The concern and focus on Al-Aqsa is, of course, very significant. Also these days we've just seen the violence,

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fighting now between armed Israeli police and Palestinian civilians on the compound during this past summer dawn.

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And currently there are lots of violence going on in the occupied West Bank.

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Then the third focus was to focus on land. So the protection of land mainly stopping further annexation and confiscation of land.

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Of course, land is at the very, very heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

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So today, in the main focus of the Islamic movement as regards land,

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is the protection of the Palestinian people in the Negev niqab that are that the state is trying to,

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in a process of appropriating, using different methods and schemes.

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And they're also working against house and home demolition in occupied East Jerusalem, as well as inside Israeli towns and villages in Israel.

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They're very active in the land day demonstrations that happen every year in since 1976, in April.

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And in fact, the young leaders, these young, educated, particularly men who came back in the seventies,

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were amongst the first people to initiate the land day demonstrations by Palestinians in Israel.

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In addition to these three goals, the Islamic Union works to promote an Arab Palestinian Muslim identity amongst Palestinian citizens.

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And this is to offset the process of Israel ization.

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So let's talk about that. Israel ization can be seen as a very briefly as as a two pronged process and some Sami Maha has defined

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it as the natural process of being influenced by the culture and language of the majority since 1948.

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Whereas Nadeem Rohana has then added a bit more critically,

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that calls it an approach by the state to make Palestinian citizens more Israeli

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through a Zionist focus in education that aims to make them more acquiescent citizens.

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For for the Islamic movement. They are kind of attacking or responding to both of these brains, so to speak.

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And they want to lessen, of course, their influences. How they do that is that they try to improve the level of Arabic amongst Palestinian citizens,

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especially formal Arabic, because they live in a Hebrew speaking state and society.

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And almost all higher education institutions are operating in Hebrew.

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They also are very careful to tell or insistent on telling the Palestinian young generation the Palestinian historical narrative,

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because this is, of course, not taught in the school state school system where they are educated and where

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the curriculum is focussed on the Zionist narrative and then of course Islam.

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But they are not just teaching Islam in order to islamise, which they of course are, but it's also because in between 48 and 1967,

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there were very little available material to teach Islam, and no teachers were sort of re-educated to teach Islam.

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So generally we see amongst the Palestinian population inside Israel that they have a sort of knowledge gap of Islam across the whole population,

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and they're trying to sort of bridge that gap. So gradually, this movement has built a network of religious and social institutions across Israel,

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catering to the needs of its constituencies such as nurseries,

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social clubs, health facilities, afterschool educational organisations, soup kitchens, association for women, art and religious organisation.

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And it is through its steadily growing network of these self-reliant institutions that mainly paid for by zakat and also some foreign donors.

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I can't tell you more about them, because I simply don't know, because I'm not given that information.

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But they do exist. But of course, everything has to go through Israeli banks and financial systems, so they can't be that suspicious, I suppose.

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Anyway, so the Islamic movement then from the mid 1980s began to participate in local elections.

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The movement entered the political arena in 1983 when it pachuca local elections in the town of Copacabana,

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and in 1989 they participated in several local elections and won several seats.

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Again, Ibrahim Sarsour, a previous leader of one of the branches, described this as a peaceful Islamic revolution in Israel.

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Quite a nice quote. It has since run various municipalities and seen members gain power in several local authorities.

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And it is important to know that the local political arena is has historically,

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since the end of the military government in 1966, been the most important political stage for Palestinian citizens.

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As this is the level which directly relate to their everyday lives.

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So through their influence on local councils, they can work to improve services directly for their constituency,

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such as water supply, sewage system, garbage services, roads, public parks and garden and social services.

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So what the movement has done is that it has used its new political gain power

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since the 1980s to improve directly improve the lives of the Palestinians.

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And they are very popular at doing that because compared to other politicians on the local level amongst the Palestinian community,

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they are seen as unrelated to Israeli Zionist political parties.

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They're seen as uncorrupt on a sort of individual level. They are seen as not related to or trying, at least in the case of Olmert,

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for him largely succeeding, to distance himself from this old command based political structure.

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And also, they're seen as getting the job done.

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This I heard from many when I interviewed Israeli organisations or represented the Israeli bureaucracy that

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the Palestinian towns and villages that were run majority by Islamist leaders were the most functioning.

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They you know, they they did they they got the job done, basically.

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So people were happy. So it is based on this the trifecta of goals and the religious, ethnic,

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national identity promoted by this movement in combination with this grassroots and political

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activism that I described the movement's leaders and activists as Islamist Palestinian nationalists.

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Let that sink in.

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The movement then split in 1996 due to the disagreement of whether or not to stand for national elections for the Israeli parliament,

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the Knesset, the northern branch. And now it comes said no,

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arguing that it was not permissible to enter a non-Muslim political system and that

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such a participation meant a recognition of the Zionist character of the state.

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They also meant that as Islamists they could not enter and none a non-Muslim system that didn't send on Sharia but non-Muslim system.

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The Southern branch, on the other hand,

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argued that there was room for political compromise with non-Muslim actors when this constituted a local political context

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and when this is the best way in which to promote and protect the rights and interests of the native Palestinians.

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So since 1996, there has never been two branches, the northern and the southern.

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These names only refer to the seat of the leaders and the sort of main city villages of the two branches.

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But across the country it's not like in the north.

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Everyone with the northern branch and in the south, everyone in the southern.

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It's all a mix. And I would say every locality will have people who support both.

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So it's not it's only because Sharia law comes from Omer Farhang, which is north of Kofod Kassam, where Darwish and Darwish came from.

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Generally, these two places would be mostly northern and southern in general, but it's not not a rule as such.

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So since yes, and from 1996,

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the Southern branch has participated in national elections and has High Representative

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in the Israeli Parliament on a list that it's called the United Arab List,

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or in Hebrew, often alongside quite often on this.

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This is a multi-party system and they often on the list,

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they would sometimes have other political parties representing Palestinian citizens with them on the list, but sometimes not.

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It's a little bit confusing coalition politics like this.

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So as an indication, though, of the popularity of this list, it was the largest list representing this constituency between 2009 and 2015.

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The Northern Branch, on the other hand, has only participated in local elections, mostly in the town of only five and only until 2013.

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Then this branch has been under increasing pressure from the Government and its leader

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Sharon Salat has been convicted in Israeli courts on several occasions for connexions,

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with Hamas,

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the Islamist organisation in the Gaza Strip and the occupied territories for inciting violence and for spitting at an officer all charges he denies.

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The split caused a lot of turmoil in the movement and amongst its supporters, especially when I interview student activists.

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They are very much against the split and they thought it was a huge distraction from

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the actual joint goals and activism and they would like to see a reunification.

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There has been talks of reunifications and attempts, but it never came to anything.

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And things that are mentioned as problematic is, of course, now this, since it's since 1996, the institutionalisation of the split.

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We'll talk about that soon, as well as the fight over who's going to be the leader when you have sort of two structures

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of leaders and the fact that the leadership style between the two branches is very different.

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So the southern branch has new elections for leader every four years, whereas the Northern Branch has kept the leaders since 1996 and onwards.

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So these are some of the differences that cause these discussions not to bear any fruit.

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So basically at the grassroots level, what has happened is that we have the creation of what I call mirrored organisation.

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So there is all these organisation that cater to the needs of the population.

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Now we have one for the southern, one for the northern. So you have one Alexios in Danger Festival in one farm and one anchor for custom.

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You have one association for use for the Northern Branch and one for the Southern Branch.

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So that's also at camp level. Israeli universities you will have to organisation representing Islamist students interest, not one.

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So basically these mirrored organisation compete over both supporters as well as funding.

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Now since the split, most academic writing in media reporting on the movement would describe the Northern

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Branch as a radical fringe rejection to participate in the national election.

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And I assume also due to the more vocal and direct language of its leaders, should isolate and come out.

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Khatib. And it describes the Southern branches moderate because of its participation and the more conciliatory approach,

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especially as practised by the first leader,

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Abdullah Darwish, who was quite active in interreligious dialogue and often participated in Israeli media,

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speaking Hebrew and was sort of very much seen as an as an open.

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Minded. Palestinian representative.

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Now, I disagree with this terminology. I don't find it very helpful.

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I find that it is invested with meaning associated with other Islamist movements and thus implying

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ideological stance and political conduct that doesn't necessarily reflect these two branches.

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And also, I think it's unhelpful because there is no agreed upon definition of what does it mean moderate or what does it mean radical?

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How do we measure it? And therefore, anyone, me, the writer or you, the reader hopefully can, you know, put into it any content that you find fit.

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And we might not even agree on what we're talking about. And then I think it just leads to more confusion rather than more understanding.

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So therefore, you know, if you're saying that people are moderate, is it because of their acceptance of democratic principles?

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Is that liberal rights rejection of violence? Or is are we talking about the reaction to state ideology or practises or interpretations of Islam?

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And in which case, if we're talking about what is radical Islam is that often it's described as

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being determined by the threat that an Islamist group is adjudged to pose.

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The question is who is it posing the strength to and how do we consider any group a threat?

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Like where are these lines? Therefore, I suggest that both of these branches are pragmatic.

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Why? Because both have adjusted their ideology as well as their practise to fit into the Israeli state and society context.

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They follow the state law, and till 2013, both branches partook in the election system and in the state bureaucracy.

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Of course, then the Northern Branch only on the local level and the southern branch on the local and national level.

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Both are non-violent and they modify their Islamist goal to the context.

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This is interesting. When I was interested in interviewing again, this is sunset,

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but I am so soon we were talking about, you know, what is your actual goal as an Islamist?

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I said, you know, theoretically my goal is an Islamist state, but how could I have an Islamist state when I'm in the minority?

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If I wake up tomorrow and all the Jews converted to Islam was suffering and then we, you know, we can promote our state, but this is not a reality.

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So why would I even it's not practical to think about it in their practise.

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The two branches are not that different except from their stance on national elections.

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Both of them offer the same social, cultural, educational and religious services.

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Leaders of both are vocal in response to Israeli actions, both inside Israel, but also in the occupied territories,

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and both support charity organisations in the occupied Palestinian territories,

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some of which are related and associated with Hamas, simply because Hamas controls whatever happens in the Gaza Strip.

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There might also be other reasons we can discuss that later.

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For example, also both leaders of leaders of both the branches where on the flotilla there's some boats that go to Gaza to help and support in 2010,

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but only the law of the Northern Branch was given media attention inside Israel,

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whereas Abu Dhabi's lot ahead of the Southern branch, nobody mentioned him.

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So and this is a typical pattern. So the branch that is sort of branded as radical gets all the attention in the reporting.

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I believe a more accurate description of the differences between them is to call the Northern Branch isolationist,

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especially since 2013, where it has become extremely explicit because it no longer participates in local elections.

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When I interviewed some leaders in 2015 before it was outlawed, I asked Why?

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Why did you choose to stop participating in election, especially in 2013?

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Because they were set to win and in fact their mayoral candidate chose to still

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participate in election and stood as an independent and did win the elections anyway.

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The leaders said that they had thought about it and they felt that they wanted to focus on activism, religious and social, and they felt bugged.

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Down is a sort of a translation, I think, of by party politics,

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and they felt that they were splitting the Palestinian people rather than uniting them.

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And they didn't want to be part of this this political scene anymore.

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Now, the Southern branch I described as integrationist, it is working within the system to try to change it.

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And this has become even more pronounced recently, which I will address soon.

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2015 broke two watershed moments for the movement.

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The most dramatic was the outlawing of the Northern Branch.

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Then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that this branch is undermined, the state incited to violence and had ties with Hamas.

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So according to my interviewees in the branch, after the outlawing, of course, the this came as a shock.

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They were waiting for something quite big and maybe losing some, some people being arrested or closing down of part of the organisation.

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They were not prepared for a total outlawing.

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As a consequence, all of these organisations that I've described that cater to the needs of the Palestinians inside, they were all outlawed.

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So thousands of people working in these organisations were made unemployed overnight.

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The state had not thought about this. Did not. Expect them to show up at the unemployment office the day after.

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Did not have any idea how many people these organisations employed and many more thousands of course,

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then lost all of these educational, social supportive organisations that they used in their everyday lives.

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Palestinian citizens across the country and across the political and religious spectrum protested,

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calling the decision a political, draconian measure to divide and rule this minority.

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No one from the Northern Branch were charged with any criminal offences,

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but the leader Salah has since been imprisoned twice for incitement to violence and he was last released in December 2021.

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Also in 2015, the Northern Southern Branch joined the new parliamentary list, parliamentary list called the Joint List.

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The Joint List includes many ideological currents and is unified only by the

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centralising force of the ethnic minority identity and status of Palestinian citizens.

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And interestingly, the original idea of Darwish when he wanted to join elections in 1996,

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was to join in one list with all Palestinian representatives.

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He never wanted an Islamist party anyway.

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The joint list from 2015 was very successful.

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It had 13 of 120 seats in 2015 and 2019 and then 15 seats in the 2020 election,

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which doesn't sound that much if you don't appreciate how many parties, political parties there are in Israel.

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But it made it the third largest list in the parliament.

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This is huge. Despite the success in February last year,

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the Southern Branches United Arab list round that we talked about split from the joint list under the new leadership of Mansour Abbas.

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Abbas also then made close contact with right wing, the right wing Likud Party under Netanyahu during 2020.

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And the idea was that Ra'am would support Netanyahu in his new coalition.

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However, Netanyahu didn't manage to establish a coalition, and in June 2021, the Southern branch surprisingly joined the new Bennett Lapid Coalition.

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This is only the second time in history that an Arab party is in any government or coalition in Israel.

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Oh, but without ministerial positions.

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And Abbas said he refused that because he thought it would be too embarrassing to walk around with which you would have to have a future minister.

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So Israeli security before and behind you all the time.

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He said it wouldn't do him any good. Now, why did Abbas choose to take the Southern branch's political party into the Israeli coalition?

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He argues that it is in order to get more for his constituency,

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and he was promised many millions earmarked for development of Arab communities inside Israel

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and also was promised the recognition of free Bedouin unrecognised villages in the Negev Naka,

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which would provide these villages with basic infrastructure that since 1948 they have not had,

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such as water, sewage, electricity, roads, schools and health clinic.

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According to Abbas, the reasons for his position is that now, as part of actual coalition,

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the Palestinian citizens have political influence and the southern branch is the new sort of kingmaker in Israeli politics,

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not just an ignored oppositional party.

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He argued that he can use this position to secure funding for this constituency and to prove actual situation of Palestinian citizens,

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particularly as it comes to planning housing, fight violence,

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organised and organised crime in the community in addition to the previously mentioned issues.

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These decisions and Abbas's Abbas as the leader of the Islamist party, has caused a lot of controversy.

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This has been exacerbated by his comment that Israel is a Jewish state legally and demographically,

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which has been a comment widely criticised by Palestinian citizens across the political and religious spectrum.

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And also it was controversial that this spring he decided to stay in the coalition

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despite the fighting on the Hatami Sharif Temple Mount compound at the moment.

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Of course, Israel is now heading to its fifth election in two years and we are not sure.

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But Abbas and the party this might be able to get above the threshold and get three or five maybe members of Knesset.

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It remains to be seen in the informal conversations I've had with Palestinian citizens.

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Now, recently, I get a I get an idea that a lot of people who wouldn't necessarily boycott elections

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will boycott elections because they're unimpressed with all of their representatives.

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And they want to give them a proper hint that, you know, we are not happy and you don't deserve our votes.

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Yet Abbas seems to have and keep the support of his own southern branch of the Islamic movement by amongst the voters,

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as well as the Shura Council, which is the sort of legislative council of the southern branches of political and organisational structure.

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So in conclusion, my publication comes at a time with the southern branch of the Islamic movement is

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at the heart of the current political development and public debate in Israel,

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where the Northern Bronze features when its leaders are imprisoned or let out of prison or something, says something controversial.

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But both branches are in the news, so they're kind of in the news for the opposite reasons.

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You can say in a way that integrationist and isolationist and as such,

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I hope and think my book is quite timely and that you will have time to engage with it.

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Thank you.