Ra’am’s leading charter supports Palestinian right to return, calls Zionism racist

The charter led by Ra’am, the Islamic party advocated by the mainstream parties vying to form the next government of Israel, calls for the return of Palestinian refugees, saying ‘there can be no allegiance to Israel, and considers Zionism as a ‘racist’, occupying project, ”according to a current version of the document provided to The Times of Israel by a senior figure in Ra’am.

Ra’am is the political wing of the Southern Islamic Movement, an organization inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. The charter of the Southern Islamic Movement will be updated in 2018 and revised during a conference in Nazareth in 2019, chaired by Framework leader Mansour Abbas.

‘The State of Israel was born out of the racist, occupying Zionist project; unjust Western and British imperialism; and the disintegration and sluggishness of the Arabs and Islamists [nations]. “We do not absolve ourselves, the Palestinian people, of our responsibility and we are failing to confront this project,” the charter said.

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It calls for the so-called right of return for Palestinian refugees who left or were expelled in 1948, which is widely seen as a red line by most Zionist Israelis, who see an influx of potentially millions of Palestinians to Israel as the demographic end of the Jews state.

The 80-page charter, which covers all aspects of the movement’s positions and activities, from its charitable work to its religious worldview, includes a two-state solution as a possible framework and declares a Palestinian state ‘with Israel’. must be established. in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. But it notes that a right of return for Palestinians should be part of that kind of accommodation.

Alternatively, it advocates a single, two-state state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

‘Remove your hands from the Palestinian people so that they can establish a free and independent state, alongside Israel, and that the outcasts and displaced persons can return to their homeland and their homes and their land. Or accept one state from the river to the sea, in which the two peoples can live in freedom and equality and security and peace under heaven, ”reads the charter in this context.

Elsewhere the charter states: “We are all [united as] one hand until the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and in the noble Jerusalem; when the displaced and displaced return to their homes and to their homeland. ”

Ra’am party officials have for the past few months avoided discussing how their movement views controversial issues regarding final status regarding Israel and the Palestinians. Abbas rather focused on the needs of the Arab community of Israel and in a first speech last week called for Arab-Jewish cooperation and equality. Islamic Movement MPs campaigned in Arab towns and cities before the March 23 election to improve the quality of life of Arab Israelis.

‘We have views [on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict]”But this is not the time,” Raid-MK Walid Taha told The Times of Israel on Saturday.

Asked about the position of the Southern Islamic Movement and Ra’am on the right to return, Taha said it was ‘bad timing’ to discuss the matter now.

The Islamic Movement signed this charter in 2018. In early 2019, the document was reviewed by senior party officials with leading academics in Nazareth. According to Arab Israeli news website Arab48, Mansour Abbas – who was already the leader of the Ra’am party – chaired the meeting.

The charter of the Islamic Movement compares the status quo in Israel and the territories with the ephemeral crusader empires built in the Middle Ages by European invaders in the Holy Land. However, it does not directly call for Israel’s destruction, but calls on Israel to pursue a two-state solution before it is too late.

‘You have a warning in the Frank apostates [the Crusaders] which devastated the country with violence for almost two centuries, until they were defeated by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and his soldiers, ”according to the charter.

Israel’s Islamic Movement was founded by Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish – a complex, contradictory figure. While initially supporting the spread of Islam through violence – even serving two years in prison for a series of ideologically motivated assaults, Darwish eventually embraced democracy and peaceful change by da’wa, Islamic proselytization.

The movement eventually spread widely through Arab cities and towns – especially in southern Israel – which run kindergartens, colleges, health clinics, mosques and even a sports league.

In the 1990s, the Islamic Movement split between those who supported and those who opposed the peace process in Oslo between Israel and the Palestinians. The more radical northern branch – led by former Darwish protégé Raed Salah – opposed the move. But Darwish, who led the southern branch, embraced it and paved the way for the creation of an Islamic party, Ra’am, which seeks to work within the political framework of the Knesset.

Ra’am could possibly put Netanyahu or his opponents over the 61-seat mark for a Knesset majority and crown the next prime minister. But some right-wing politicians, both in the pro-Netanyahu bloc and in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, have ruled out basing a coalition on the party’s support, due to an anti-Zionist stance; others accused Ra’am of supporting terrorists.

In a historic speech to the country last Thursday – which was broadcast live on every major television channel in Israel – Abbas said his party “must respect every human being for its humanity” and stressed the common fate of Arabs and Jews in the state of Israel .

“If the road in Wadi Ara is problematic, it will make no distinction between Arab and Jewish passers-by,” Abbas said. “If a bed is missing in Soroka Hospital, it could harm those in Beersheba and in Rahat.”

Many observers have noted that Abbas was wary of omitting public statements about the Palestinian cause from his address. He spoke of himself as “a man of the Islamic Movement, a proud Arab and Muslim, a citizen of the State of Israel”, and preferred not to refer to himself as a Palestinian. However, the head of the Ra’am party noted that Arab Israelis had hindered ‘collective realization’, in a possible nod to national rights.

Abbas also acknowledged in his speech the gulf that separated him from the Jewish Israeli public, but he maintained that the urgency of Jewish-Arab cooperation trumps differences of opinion on other burning issues.

“Now is the time to understand each other, each other’s narrative,” Abbas said. “We do not have to agree on everything, and of course we will not agree on many things. But we must give ourselves and our children the opportunity to understand each other. ”

Supporters call Abbas’ speech a courageous commitment to pragmatism, to set aside seemingly insoluble differences in favor of achieving tangible gains for Arab Israelis.

The Charter of the Islamic Movement from 2018 contains the same messages and says that the “non-violent civilian … progress in which we are engaged” will be to the benefit of Jews as well as Arabs.

‘[This] aims to strengthen the values ​​of justice and freedom and dignity for all people, Jews and Arabs, and aims to remove oppression and prejudice and insults for the oppressed in the world, ”reads the charter.

But the fundamental document of the movement also contains a stricter rhetoric about the relationship between what the ‘Palestinian people in Israel’ and the Israeli state call.

‘There can be no fidelity to it [Israel], and also no identification with the Zionist, racist, occupying idea or any acceptance of any of the various forms of ‘Israelisation’ that will deprive us of our identity and details and rights, ”reads the charter.

“Our political participation, at all its levels, from local government to the legislature in parliament [i.e., the Knesset], and in official civilian authorities, is only an attempt to defend our rights and the interests of our Arab Palestinian community within [Israel], and to help our Palestinian cause, and to clash with the proposals and policies and programs of the Zionist project in the heart of the state institutions, ”the charter also says.

“It is at least a word of truth before a tyrannical despot,” the charter concludes, referring to a well-known saying attributed to the Prophet of Islam, Mohammad.

The Islamic Movement indicates in the charter that the promotion of a Palestinian state is not the first priority of the movement. The main objectives relate to the Palestinian community in Israel.

“Our main goal regarding the State of Israel with regard to Palestinian Arab society is to maintain our presence in our homeland, to preserve our identity and the Arab, Islamic and Christian identity of our country and to enable our community. . to achieve its rights in civil, national and religious fields and in daily life, ”says the charter.