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Introduction
The Islamic Movement, a major sociopolitical force among the Palestinians in IsraelFootnote 1, has been the object of multiple studies, particularly in the context of its political activism (Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004; Paz, Reference Paz1989; Peled, Reference Peled2001). Few studies, however, have addressed the social services it provides. The lacuna is related to the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which often results in the tendency to identify social activism with the Palestinian struggle against Israel and to view the Islamic Movement as strictly political. It is also related to a broad tendency among social scientists to ignore or downplay the role of religion in social policies and services (Jawad, Reference Jawad2009).
Until the 1970s, social activities by religious organisations had been marginal to the welfare state literature. More recently, however, we have seen growing interest in social activities and, particularly, social service provision by faith-based organisations. Some of the first major studies in this ‘religious turn’ examined Christian and Jewish communities in Northern America and Europe (Cnaan et al., Reference Cnaan, Boddie, Handy, Yancey and Schneider2002), as well as Muslim immigrant communities in Europe (Adamson, Reference Adamson2006). This was followed by a growing interest in religious groups among Muslim communities in Arab and other Islamic countries, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon (Jawad, Reference Jawad2009; Clark, Reference Clark2004; Cammett, Reference Cammett2014; Wiktorowicz, Reference Wiktorowicz and Wiktorowicz2004; Roy, Reference Roy2011), and their influence on social policymaking (Jawad, Reference Jawad2009).
In a similar vein, the present study examines the relation between religion and the welfare state and the role of faith-based organisations in providing social services. The specific case of the Islamic Movement is unique and theoretically innovative in that it represents not only a religious but also an ethnic, indigenous minority. This intersection of religion, nationality and indigeneity has led the movement to rethink its welfare role and formulate the Independent Community (IC) concept.
The present article addresses the welfare services provided under the IC concept developed by the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in the early 2000sFootnote 2. Despite its importance, the concept has received little scholarly attention. The present article's aim is to add to the existing knowledge about the welfare aspect of the movement's activism, on two levels: first, to explain the motives for formulating the IC concept, its development process, and constituent principles; second, to examine it in the context of the discrimination of the Palestinian indigenous minority.
Faith-based social movements in majority and minority communities
An extensive literature (e.g. Banting et al., Reference Banting, Johnston, Kymlicka, Soroka, Banting and Kymlicka2006) discusses the degree to which the welfare state provides for the social needs of various populations. Different countries have adopted diverse approaches to dealing with ethnic, religious, migrant, and/or indigenous minorities’ demands for political rights and social service provision. The social services provided depend on whether the population receiving them is immigrant or indigenous. Banting et al. (Reference Banting, Johnston, Kymlicka, Soroka, Banting and Kymlicka2006) found that countries vary significantly in terms of recognising indigenous minorities and providing them with sociopolitical and economic rights, as well as land titles and collective cultural autonomy. Accordingly, the minorities’ own ways of providing their social services vary according to the country, with the degree of self-reliance proportional to the state's provision and with non-faith-based organisations’ ability or willingness to meet their unique needs (Dixon and Scheurell, Reference Dixon, Scheurell, Dixon and Scheurell1995; Patel et al., Reference Patel, Kaseke and Midgley2012). Heterogeneous societies that include diverse minority groups challenge the state in providing for the minorities’ social needs. Often, these find themselves developing their own social welfare systems (Weisbrod, Reference Weisbrod1988, Reference Weisbrod1998).
Most of the literature addresses the development of public policies or the role of the welfare state in providing services to minorities, while few studies address the role played by the minorities themselves in meeting their social welfare needs in a manner consistent with their distinct cultural and religious characteristics. To understand the case of the Islamic Movement in Israel, the article is informed by two major bodies of literature: Islamic organisations in Islamic countries, and Islamic organisations in Western welfare states.
Islamic majority communities
The self-reliance approach adopted by the Islamic Movement is not unique but rather similar to the experience of most Islamic movements inspired and informed by the Muslim Brotherhood (Wickham, Reference Wickham2003). In her study of faith-based organisations in Lebanon, Jawad (Reference Jawad2009) suggests that they play a major role in providing social services, compensating for the lack of social security provision by the state. In the last two decades, researchers have begun applying social movement theory to Islamic movements in other Arab countries (Clark, Reference Clark2004; Wickham, Reference Wickham2003).
The discussion of these movements cannot be uncoupled from their attitude towards the state, which they perceive as a secular entity. In Egypt, for example, the emergence of faith-based social organisations established by the middle class was a response to the state's weakening and designed to meet the sociopolitical needs of this class, as well as of the poor (Clark, Reference Clark2004). The idea that ‘Islam is the solution’ for the country's socioeconomic and political woes is central to many of those movements, and is manifested by the establishment of alternative organisations such as Islamic hospitals in Egypt (Ali, Reference Ali2004; Clark, Reference Clark2004; Göçmen, Reference Göçmen2013; Peled, Reference Peled2001; Rosmer, Reference Rosmer2012; Wickham, Reference Wickham2003).
These alternative organisations, in turn, manifest the superiority and power of Islam over the state. They challenge not only the state's (in)ability to provide essential services but the very raison d'être of the modern Western secular nation-state. According to Clark (Reference Clark2004), this represents the formation of an alternative society. Conversely, based on a comprehensive study of Islamic and non-Islamic faith-based organisations in Lebanon, Cammett (Reference Cammett2014) argues that in all cases, social services were provided not only to meet social needs but also to gain political power.
Islamic minority communities
Minority communities of Muslims, particularly in Western welfare states, are more directly relevant to this study, and their experience can help us to understand the emergence of the Islamic Movement in Palestinian society. In recent decades, Muslim communities have become much more widespread in Western Europe. These significant minorities require government welfare agencies to actively deal with their religious and sociopolitical needs.
In parallel with the host countries’ assimilation policies, Islamic communities have also begun providing for individual and collective welfare needs. As early as in 1988, Islamic Turkish organisations in Germany united under an umbrella organisation, now called the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, with more and more organisations subsequently joining it to promote their collective interests vis-à-vis German authorities (Göçmen, Reference Göçmen2013). After the turn of the millennium, with the massive influx of Muslim immigrants to Europe, such umbrella organisations began playing a major role in mediating between faith-based organisations and governments, demanding collective rights as a religious minority and competing with Christian faith-based organisations for government resources (Hollinger, Reference Hollinger1995).
The Palestinians and the welfare system
The Palestinians comprise 20.8 per cent of Israel's population. They are religiously heterogeneous, although most of them are Muslims (82.1 percent; the remainder are Christians, 9.4 per cent and Druze, 8.4 per cent) (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2016). The members of this indigenous minority obtained citizenship in 1948, and they are formally full-fledged citizens. However, they have experienced processes of marginalisation and discrimination on different levels, not least in the welfare area.
Studies indicate that institutional discrimination of ethnic groups by the welfare state reinforces structural racial inequality (Quadango, Reference Quadango1994; Rosenhek, Reference Rosenhek1999). Indeed, one of the main characteristics of the Israeli welfare state is its hierarchic segmentation of different social groups in terms of their access to resources (Holler, Reference Holler2014). One of the groups most negatively affected by this is the Palestinians (Rosenhek, Reference Rosenhek1999, Reference Rosenhek2002; Rosenhek and Shalev, Reference Rosenhek, Shalev, Butenschon, Davis and Hassassian2000). Cnaan (Reference Cnaan1985) explains the differential social services for Jews and Palestinians by what he calls ‘the enemy factor’: throughout the years, the Jewish state and society have considered Palestinian society as an enemy, leading to systematic discrimination in social services.
This discrimination in welfare and other social spheres has brought material deprivation to Palestinian families. According to a recent National Insurance Institute Poverty Report (Endeweld et al., Reference Endeweld, Barkali, Gottlieb and Heller2016), the poverty rate among those families is 53.3 per cent, as opposed to 13.8 per cent among Jewish families. A study on the role played by state transfer payments in reducing poverty found that the welfare state does indeed manage to reduce poverty levels, but these payments are least effective in Palestinian society. Generally, although the Palestinians have never been completely excluded from the welfare state, they have always remained on its margins (Adalah, 2011; Rosenhek, Reference Rosenhek1999; Rosenhek and Shalev, Reference Rosenhek, Shalev, Butenschon, Davis and Hassassian2000). Indeed, according to the Ministry of Social Welfare (2006), government support of local social services in Palestinian municipalities is 30 per cent lower than in Jewish ones. This discrimination is also evident in public housing: since 1948, the state has established some 700 new Jewish settlements, and zero settlements for Palestinians, and failed to provide housing solutions for young Palestinians. It is also evident in education: one of the major differences between the Arab and Jewish education systems is the average number of students per class (28.9 compared to 24.7) (Haidar, Reference Haidar2010).
Several third-sector organisations compensate for this discrimination and resulting social polarisation by providing social services. Jamal (Reference Jamal2017) identifies the lack of socioeconomic state services as one of the causes behind the development of such organisations in Palestinian society in Israel. Specifically, the literature on Palestinian civil society has referred to the particular role played in this regard by the Islamic Movement (Payes, Reference Payes2003, Reference Payes2005; Gidron et al., Reference Gidron, Bar. and Katz2004), with some arguing that it provides services where the state has failed to, or as an alternative to deficient state services (Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004; Ali, Reference Ali2004).
The Islamic movement
Historical overview
The Islamic Movement is unique in combining three identity elements: it represents a religious and a national-ethnic indigenous minority in a Western nation state, which is in turn dominated by the Jewish nationality and religion. Its historical development as a religious and sociopolitical movement and its waxing and waning religious and political power are strongly related to its social role. The movement began to develop in the pre-statehood years, 1928–1948. The 1948 war spelled the end of this development and, for decades afterwards, it was limited to religious activities in mosques. The movement revived in the early 1970s, when Sheikh Abdullah Nimar Darwish began teaching youngsters in Kafr Qasim (Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004). Subsequently, in the mid-1970s, a group of young Palestinians who had graduated from Islamic institutions in the West Bank joined the movement's activism. These included future leaders of the movement such as Sheikh Raed Salah, Sheikh Kamal Khatib and Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsur.Footnote 3
The renewed relations with religious education institutions in the West Bank, following its occupation in the 1967 war, led to the formation of a group called Usrat Al-Jihad (Jihad Family), which opposed the Zionist state and used violent and other means to spread the word among the Muslim population in Israel (Ali, Reference Ali2004; Peled, Reference Peled2001). In the early 1980s, their activities ended with the arrest of 60 activists, including Darwish who would continue serving as the movement's leader after his release in 1983. At this stage in its development, the movement became more moderate ideologically and tried to appeal to the consensus in Palestinian society by declaring it would restrict itself to legal activities (Peled, Reference Peled2001). This ideological shift involved entering into the municipal sphere and providing cultural, educational and welfare services in various localities (Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004; Paz, Reference Paz1989).
Against this background of a general return to traditional Islamic values in which the movement played a central role, scholars (Ibrahim, Reference Ibrahim1990; Paz, Reference Paz1989) began to investigate its political ascendancy in the municipal elections in an attempt to understand the sources of its power and its unique social impact. Some argued that there was a direct link between its social activities and political power, and that its growing community activities were a result of the general sociopolitical oppression and discrimination of the Palestinian population (Ali, Reference Ali2013; Ibrahim, Reference Ibrahim1990; Mustafa, Reference Mustafa, Rekhess and Rudnitzky2013; Paz, Reference Paz1989). In other words, the movement filled a void created by the government's unwillingness to provide social and community services in Palestinian municipalities.
In the 1990s, the mosque once again became pivotal in village and town life, not only as a house of prayer but as a community centre as well. On the eve of the elections to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in 1996, the Islamic Movement found itself at a crossroads, when it split into the so-called ‘southern’ and ‘northern’ movements. There is no scholarly consensus regarding the reason for this split (see Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004; Ali, Reference Ali2004; Peled, Reference Peled2001; Rosmer, Reference Rosmer2012). Many argue that the split was caused by the fact that the Northern Branch – led by Salah, who served since 1996 as the mayor of Umm al-Fahm – believed that Palestinian participation in the elections threatened the movement's religious values and would lead to the Israelization of Palestinian society. Darwish, on the other hand, who led the Southern Branch, believed that participation would promote the objectives of the Islamic Movement and Palestinian society in general. Note that both branches were, and still are, committed to nonviolent activism within the boundaries of the law (Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004; Rosmer, Reference Rosmer2012). But although they share this approach and much of their ideology, the split had significant results, not the least of which was that, since 1996, the Southern Branch has been running as an independent party in the parliamentary elections, while the Northern Branch has remained outside the national political arena (Aburaiya, Reference Aburaiya2004; Rosmer, Reference Rosmer2012).
In order to oppose the pressures applied against the Palestinians by the Jewish state and society, the movement – first the Northern and then the Southern Branch – adopted a double strategy: providing social services on the local level and promoting a new Islamic Palestinian identity, with both elements mutually reinforcing each other (Rosmer, Reference Rosmer2012).
Ethnic civil society and the Independent Community
Throughout the development of the Islamic Movement, social service provision has been central to its activities. Nevertheless, as already mentioned, it was the political aspect that attracted most of the scholarly interest. Consequently, there is lack of in-depth knowledge about the social services it provides in most Palestinian communities in Israel.
Whether as part of the IC or as standalone services, the movement has been a major social service provider, particularly in areas neglected by the government, in a way that is similar to the other third-sector organisations in Palestinian society. Until the 1970s, few NGOs were active in Palestinian society as a long-term result of the sociopolitical collapse of that society following the 1948 war,Footnote 4 together with a government policy of preventing the development of the Palestinian third sector that was seen as a national threat.
Palestinian civil society is distinct from its Jewish counterpart (Doron, Reference Doron and Norton1996), particularly in terms of the state's differential support. Therefore, we need to discuss it as an ethnic civil society (Yishai, Reference Yishai1998) that provides comprehensive solutions to meet inequality. Such a society uses the ‘classical’ tools of civil society to empower the ethnic community. In the case of the Islamic Movement, ethnic civil society develops a moral alternative suitable for the community by promoting autonomous organisations, thereby substituting for the state, particularly in the welfare and education areas.
After the split, and particularly in the 2000s during the Second Intifada (see below), the Northern Branch led by Salah began implementing the IC concept. The main objective was to design a society that managed its institutions and daily life independently of the Israeli establishment. Salah envisioned the establishment of Islamic educational institutions from kindergarten to high school. Nevertheless, implementing that vision was limited by government restrictions such as the monitoring and censorship of religious and political messages and restrictions on fundraising (Ali, Reference Ali and Rekhess2007, Reference Ali2013). These restrictions culminated in the outlawing of the movement in 2015, which drove the employees of its 17 social organisations nationwide out of work, not to mention the damage to the service clients. Accordingly, the plan was to proceed gradually by first creating strictly local institutions and then creating umbrella organisations. While these services would not provide full autonomy for the Palestinians, they would enable some degree of separation and independence (Ali, Reference Ali and Rekhess2007; Mustafa, Reference Mustafa, Rekhess and Rudnitzky2013). They include daycare centres, an NGO supporting women and mothers, NGOs for the exercise of medical and social rights, charities, a research centre, a communication centre and community centres. The religiousness of these organisations is evident in their names, their values and the identity of their employees – for example, women working in them will mostly be religious and traditionally dressed.
It is difficult to find accurate data on the scope of the Islamic Movement's welfare activity. Moreover, since the movement has been outlawed, it would be difficult to estimate that scope even if some of those organisations continue to operate under different names. Local data that provide some general idea are available from Kafr Kanna. In that town, where the movement was highly active prior to 2015, 27 out of the 36 day-care centres belong to the movement.
Implications for the Independent Community
As suggested by this review, there are still not enough studies on the intersection of religious, national-ethnic and indigenous minority statuses in the case of Palestinian Muslims in Israel. The conflict approach argues that new movements emerge following major societal rifts, organise as anti-establishment entities using radical means, and develop through cultural means (Gladwin, Reference Gladwin1994). They flourish under conditions of conflict and may act to expand such rifts to increase their strength; thus, conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may have ‘positive’ implications for society, such as cohesion and the growth of nonprofits (Coser, Reference Coser1956; Reference Coser1967).
Within this context of the Islamic Movement's growth in the shadow of sociopolitical discrimination, the present study seeks to answer the following questions. What is the idea of an IC? How did it develop? What are its constituent principles? And what were the motives for its formation? The objective is to understand the specific processes and events that led to the emergence of the IC as an overarching term referring to a variety of self-reliant social services and trends in its development. To do so, the study provides a historical analysis to understand how various circumstances have contributed to the development of this concept, whether internal or external to the Islamic Movement.
Method
Three types of sources are employed in this study: (1) archival materials including both the Islamic Movement press and other local Palestinian press; (2) materials from the websites of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and other websites, including interviews with Sheikh Raed Salah; and (3) semi-structured in-depth interviews with senior leaders in the Northern Movement.
Out of the national press of the Islamic Movement, 67 news stories were collected over the period from January 2000 to September 2015, referring to either of two aspects in the title or in the story's content: the term IC and the provision of social services. News stories published from 2000–2008 were collected from the archive of the National Library of Israel, and news stories published from 2008–2015 were collected from the official website of Saut Al-Haq Wal Horia (Voice of Right and Freedom), the official mouthpiece of the Northern Movement (now outlawed). All the news stories were analysed to construct a history of social service provision by the Islamic movements. Twelve of them were particularly important in referring directly to the IC concept. In addition to the news stories, two online interviews with Salah (2002a, 2002b) published in April and June 2002 were analysed, one of which was particularly important as it deconstructed the concept of IC and its meanings for Palestinian society.
Finally, two leaders in the Northern Movement were interviewed prior to its banning, in August and November 2015: Sheikh Saleh Lutfi, the (former) director of the movement's research centre, and Sheikh Raed Salah.
Findings
The emergence of the concept
Cross-referencing the news articles’ dates and the contents of the interviews indicates that there were two critical junctures in the process of ‘outing’ the IC concept. The first was the split in the Islamic Movement into two branches in 1996. The split led to a rethinking of the two branches’ approaches and, a few years later, Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Northern Movement, came up with the concept.
The second juncture was the Second Intifada (2000–2005), which in many senses redefined relations between the state and its Palestinian citizens. It broke out in October 2000 after the police killed 13 Palestinians who demonstrated in Umm al-Fahm, marking the lowest point in relations since the end of the military government.Footnote 5 For many Palestinians, the Second Intifada was symbolic of the ongoing oppression of Palestinians, highlighting the need for an IC community. The October 2000 events were significant in shaping the Palestinian national identity and had major implications for the political conduct of the Palestinians. In particular, they precipitated the fruition of the IC concept into a fully-fledged project.
In other words, the IC project was not conceived ex nihilo but had an important historical background. This was articulated in both the interviews and the extensive writing on the concept in the early 2000s, with the first mention of the term appearing in 2001.
For example, in the interview held with Salah on November 14, 2015, he described how
in 2000 [the Palestinians] were under economic siege, we were besieged in our villages; in Umm al-Fahm [the state] cut off the water supply. . . and only after we demonstrated and blocked the main road did they renew the water supply.
Both as a theoretical concept and as a practical project, the IC was conceived and first written about by Salah. Almost all news articles and interviews about the nature and development of this idea were held with him. According to the leader of the Northern Movement, the project is not limited to the Islamic Movement and its members but is a broader one, intended for the entire Palestinian population in Israel.
The movement's writings about the IC refer to the state and its institutions as shirking their responsibility to redress injustices against Palestinian society and narrow the gaps between it and the rest of the population. The movement argues that the Establishment tends to blame Palestinian municipalities for their situation and is not interested in implementing or even preparing plans to change this situation. On the other hand, the state is highly active in writing curricula and supervising the separate education system for its Palestinian population with the aim of blurring the children's identity. Accordingly, the IC is a socioeconomic-national project grounded in religious values. These findings regarding these four aspects are presented below.
The political aspect
There is distrust in the ability of Palestinian parliamentarians to effect significant changes in terms of reducing poverty in the Palestinian population. Moreover, their activity in the Knesset is limited to Palestinians who are citizens, and does not affect the more intense discrimination and oppression experienced by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, although the separation between the two populations is an artificial result of a historical accident and they are in fact parts of the same nation. In an article published in Saut al-Hak on February 7, 2003, Salah wrote:
Have we gained hundreds of rights thanks to the Knesset, and are therefore afraid of losing them should some of us boycott the elections? Obviously, we are still subjected to a policy of religious oppression and national discrimination – a policy that violates our daily rights – despite the fact that most Palestinians have voted to the Knesset in the last fifty years. . .
These words are echoed by Lutfi, interviewed on August 23, 2015:
Israel does not recognise us as a minority. It has tried to turn us [from a single society] into religious groups, which we oppose. . . We have learned from the experience of others. Canada, for example, recognises its minorities, as does Spain. . . Recognising a minority means allocating dedicated budgets, which we don't have. . .
Another point raised in the interviews is that, according to the movement's leaders, an IC is part of the rights of the Palestinians, essential for their existence as an indigenous minority. Consequently, being recognised as such by the state would lead to the allocation of economic resources according to the needs and preferences of the population. Says Salah:
This does not mean that we want to exempt the Establishment from securing our rights. Together with our determination to form an IC community, we are also determined to exercise our rights. . . I have rights as a local Arab municipality, as an individual. But more importantly, at the same time we are being exposed to a discriminatory policy designed to dismantle our society and turn us into a dependent and weak society. (November 7, 2015)
The social aspect
Notwithstanding the Palestinians’ troubled relations with the Israeli Establishment, the IC project is designed to empower them as one nation that includes non-Muslims and non-religious Muslims. Officially, at least, Salah's IC project is designed to serve the entire Palestinian population, despite its grounding in religious Muslim values. This means that various organisations that have not sprung from the Islamic Movement can be part of this umbrella project.
We say this is a project for empowering our society – ‘our society’ does not refer to Muslim society, but to Palestinian society – through cross-community partnership [with the various sectors in society] without claiming ownership or monopolizing the entire project. (November 7, 2015)
Lutfi explains:
The idea is not [politically] ideological at all, but has developed in a civic context. The idea behind the IC project is Islamic, but it is a civic project for the common good and it is our exclusive project. (August 23, 2015)
The economic aspect
The success of the IC project depends on three major prerequisites, two of which are directly economic, while the third is indirectly but significantly related to the present ethno-class divide: collective land properties, financial resources, and knowledge. The achievement of each is indispensable for a Palestinian community independent of state resources. As Salah wrote in an article published on February 15, 2002:
It is impossible for us to preserve our national identity through American funds. . . We at the Islamic Movement call for the establishment of an IC community. . .. We need independent funding to ensure the project's success, meaning that we have to invest in it from what we have in terms of lands, financial resources and abilities in order to build our lives and create the contemporary reality including all that this requires – NGOs, hospitals. . .
To be truly independent, the Palestinian community must be economically self-reliant, with independent fundraising capabilities. The issue of Western funders who impose their ideology on civil society organisations is seen as a threat to Palestinian society and its values. It is therefore essential to develop alternatives. As Salah wrote in Kul al-Arab (a local Palestinian newspaper not owned by the movement):
Can we build our society independently through external funds, knowing they impose their agenda on the organisations in return for funding. . . as well as act to take over our creative abilities in society as a condition for funding? (April, 7, 2006)
In this regard, as well as others, the movement relies on religious values. Religious revival is essential to the IC's financial independence: people must be encouraged to live more modestly and reject the values of Western consumerism, as well as make voluntary charitable donations and to observe the Zakat.Footnote 6 For example, the movement's charity organisation – The Charitable Thousand – aimed at raising a thousand dollars from a thousand people each year to support IC activities in addition to the Zakat funds. Another prerequisite for the community's independence is the allocation of lands for the Islamic Waqf – religious endowments for use in the public interest, such as mosques and sacred tombs. This can be done in several ways, including allocating part of one's estate to the Waqf.
The religious aspect
Contributing to the community is important not only for financial reasons, but also in itself: as a social value; and also, importantly, as a religious one. The IC project involves contributing workdays for the public good, in areas in need of special support: such as the remote Negev desert populated by the disadvantaged Bedouins and the mixed cities of Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle and Lod. This meets the Muslim's religious commandment of Wajb al-Waqt – literally, ‘the time obligation’ – and makes the most of the human resources in the Palestinian population.
In an article published on April 14, 2006 in Kul al-Arab, Salah wrote:
We need to revive the motivation for volunteering in our society by encouraging everyone to devote several days a year to volunteering. . . To supervise this endeavor, we must start a project called Zakat al-Waqt [the Charity of Time], which will define the percentage of time devoted, whether 1 per cent or 2 per cent of the [work]days is to be devoted to charity work. . .
In the interview on November 14, 2015, Salah explains:
Islamic Space refers to creating a climate that will allow the IC to grow. This means that we, as an Islamic movement, did not start implementing the IC project ourselves – we [only] came up with the idea. We created the climate within which various initiatives with various social purposes could grow, and ultimately all initiatives and organisations coalesce into achieving an IC.
The IC concept is thus grounded in religious values. More generally, the movement perceives its role as creating an Islamic ‘space’ or ‘climate’ conducive to the community's growth.
In other words, the movement has invoked Islamic values and placed them higher on the intra-Palestinian discourse. It encourages the observance of religious commandments related mainly to charity and considers these religious values as the main source of its strength. It believes it is impossible to achieve self-reliance without reinforcing the religious values of Palestinian Muslim citizens. In that, it considers itself unique compared to all the other sociopolitical actors in Palestinian society.
In conclusion, the IC concept is grounded in the religious values propounded by the Islamic Movement, but also in the sociopolitical context of the Palestinians in Israel. It articulates the movement's desire to create an alternative reality that, in the main, challenges the dependence of the Palestinian minority on the state social service system, on Jewish-Israeli society and NGOs financed by the West. Although grounded in Islam, this alternative is intended to benefit the entire Palestinian population, including non-Muslims, who would, however, be required to adopt its values.
Discussion
This study aimed at presenting the term IC coined by the Islamic Movement, its development and significance for Palestinian citizens of Israel who face discrimination and exclusion not only as individuals, but also on the community level of social service provision.
Minority community self-management or autonomy is not a unique invention of the Islamic Movement, nor of the Palestinians in general. Other Muslim (and non-Muslim) minorities in countries with a non-Muslim majority such as Germany have adopted similar tactics in dealing with the issue of social service provision, as in forming umbrella organisations to demand collective rights. The difference, however, lies in that the IC seeks to unite all Palestinian civil society organisations under its wings, but does not consider itself a representative entity charged with demanding collective rights from the government. On the contrary, it wishes to demand total sociopolitical independence. Another significant aspect of the movement's IC concept is the grounding of its conduct in religious values.
The similarities are most apparent in the collective provision of services covering all areas of life and provided throughout the lifespan – such as K-12 and even higher education that is economically, culturally and religiously independent – sought by indigenous minorities such as the Catalonians in Spain, the Scots in Britain or the French-speaking minority in Canada (Meho and Haas, Reference Meho and Haas2001). Unlike these minorities, however, the State of Israel does not recognise its indigenous Palestinian minority, making it more difficult to secure collective rights and customized services, or control of dedicated resources to provide these services autonomously. The outlawing of the Islamic Movement may thus be seen as emblematic of the state's opposition to truly independent sociopolitical activities by Palestinians.
The IC project compensates to a certain extent for the state's inadequate service provision. Given the lack of state funding and the lack of attention to the rights of the minority as a collective, the Muslim minority's religious and political leadership has undertaken to promote a community system that will provide for all the needs of the Palestinian population. The critical junctures in the conceptualisation of the IC – in the year of the split and upon the breakout of the Second Intifada – clearly support this linkage between the void left by the government, or rather the structural discrimination it promotes, and the need for the alternative provided by the movement.
This also highlights the difference between the Islamic Movement and its IC project and other faith-based movements in the Arab world. What it aspires to is more than Wickham's (Reference Wickham2003) ‘self-reliance approach’ adopted by other movements in dealing with secular countries. In the case of the Palestinians, the movement seeks to offer an alternative to state services – whether available or not – and in that it offers not only to provide Islamic social services but also to create an alternative Islamic society parallel to and independent of the state (Clark, Reference Clark2004; Jawad, Reference Jawad2009; Wickham, Reference Wickham2003).
Another aspect of the IC highlighted in the findings of this study is that the project is meant to serve the entire Palestinian community, including Christian and other subminorities. Having said that, it relies on religious values and seeks to raise funds and mobilise volunteers based on Islamic commandments, posing a challenge for its further development in Palestinian society, which is highly heterogeneous both in terms of religious affiliation and in terms of religiosity.
The discussion of the IC cannot ignore the context of the conflict between the Palestinian minority and the government's authorities and agencies, which have been implementing a policy of structural discrimination and exclusion of the Palestinians since the establishment of the State of Israel. As shown by Cnaan (Reference Cnaan1985), for example, the state and society in general treat the Palestinian citizen population as inherently hostile – an attitude manifested inter alia in reduced socioeconomic investment and downgraded welfare services.
An analysis combining conflict with social organisation development theories (Coser, Reference Coser1956; Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka1995; Weisbrod, Reference Weisbrod1988, Reference Weisbrod1998) suggests that one of the primary motivations for the conceptualisation of the IC is the ongoing shortage of social services for the Palestinian minority, particularly ones tailored to its collective characteristics. Thus, the IC may be seen as a positive response to a problematic situation, with the conflict leading to greater social cohesion and emergence of forces from within Palestinian society to overcome the obstacles it faces due to the state's hostility. Conversely, mainly in the eyes of Israeli policymakers, the IC could have negative consequences, particularly in terms of Palestinian separatist and isolationist tendencies.
To conclude, the findings of the present study shed light on the IC concept as an indigenous religious-national-ethnic minority's way of coping with a conflictual reality where the state discriminates against it by allocating inadequate resources in a manner not tailored to its unique collective needs. The concept envisions the provision of extensive services to the population leading to complete socioeconomic independence from state institutions. In realising this long-term goal, Islamic values are mobilised to motivate and provide a moral ground for the coping of the entire Palestinian minority with the failures of the Jewish majority state.
The uniqueness of the Islamic Movement's IC project lies in that it serves an ethnic, national and religious minority in a national majority state. It sheds light on the relations between the welfare state and faith-based organisations in a complex reality. As the Islamic Movement grew out of a vacuum, if the state wants to address the complex reality of the Palestinian minority, it must therefore change its social policies, provide additional social services to those developed independently, and particularly reconsider its relations with the Islamic organisations that provide them.
On the one hand, the welfare state needs to adopt a more multicultural social policy and develop services more appropriate to Israel's heterogeneous context. On the other, it must re-examine and develop its relations with civil society organisations and make a distinction between Jewish and Palestinian civil society. Today, the state follows the opposite policy, as indicated by the banning of the Islamic Movement.
Limitations and future research
In order to gain a fuller understanding of the IC project, it is not enough to analyse it theoretically; its implementation must be evaluated. Should the Northern Movement become legalised once again, it would be interesting to examine the actual services provided in order to assess the degree of implementation. At present, its illegal status makes it difficult to assess the extent of its activities, or determine which member organisations were active prior to its being outlawed or continued to operate under different names or affiliations.
Moreover, in order to evaluate the implementation of the concept, future studies will need to map and assess the impact of all organisations active in the heterogeneous Palestinian society – including the Southern Movement, non-faith-based movements and political parties – and the degree to which they consider themselves part of the IC project. More broadly, it would be appropriate to examine the implications of such a project for a minority population, in terms of whether it empowers it or rather creates a new dependency, not on the state but on the growing social organisations substituting for it, especially charities.
Finally, the present study did not examine the role played by the Christian and Druze subminorities: understanding the way these minorities deal with their structural discrimination will deepen our understanding of the overall situation in Palestinian society and the relation between the welfare state and religious subminorities within Palestinian society.
