In the current public brouhaha over possible collaboration with Ra'am party leader Mansour Abbas, a variety of voices have themselves heard. On the Israeli Right, Abbas and his political party are seen as "supporters of terror," while in the Arab public, they are in fact seen as conciliatory in tone and willing to compromise.
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The reality, however, is more complex. A look at the history of the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement can provide some direction.
Founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood is the source of inspiration for many Islamist movements of our time. Yet since al-Banna's death in 1949, it no longer operates as an umbrella organization. Today, every Islamist movement is independent in nature and has its own character. Practical ties between the various movements are largely maintained through their religious leaders.
In Israel, the Islamic movement accepts the rulings of the umbrella organization the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which identifies ideologically with the Muslim Brotherhood but has taken a different stance on issues of assimilation into Israeli society. The person that led this trend was the movement's founder in Israel Sheikh Abdullah Nimar Darwish. Born in 1948 to communist parents in Kafr Qasim, Darwish studied Islam in Nablus after the 1967 Six-Day War. It was there that he was exposed to the Muslim Brotherhood's teachings. When he returned in 1972, he founded the Islamic Movement to bolster Islamic identity among Arab Israelis. By the late 1970s, he established a small terrorist group, a move that resulted in him spending 3.5 years in an Israeli prison.
As a result of his prison time, Darwish underwent an ideological transformation and abandoned the path of terror and jihad. As Darwish himself has said, he understood that undermining the Jewish state was not the appropriate path for Arab Israelis to take and called for the acceptance of the State of Israel as an existing fact and for Arabs to be law-abiding citizens. He understood the Arab public needed to integrate into the state. The Islamic Movement took part in the elections for local authorities for the first time in the 1980s.
As a result of their success, Darwish made a historic and controversial decision in 1996: to run for Knesset elections in stark contrast to the Islamic scholars, chief among them IUMS head Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is strongly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hamas.
This decision led to a split in the movement, with the northern branch headed by Raed Salah adhering to al-Qaradawi's line and actively opposing the state and the southern branch recognizing the state and its laws. Darwish continued on his path, and together with Rabbi Michael Melchior, established the Religious Peace Initiative to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians on a religious basis and promote mutual recognition and understanding between the Jewish and Muslim public in Israel. The two worked as "internal mediators," connecting rabbis and sheikhs and acting to prevent violence and riots at various events.
Continuing this trend, the movement gained independence from the Islamic rulings issued by the Palestinian Authority-appointed mufti of Jerusalem. At a special conference, the movement decided to establish a body to focus on a unique ruling for Israel's Muslim minority that would take into consideration its unique circumstances within Israeli society and in cooperation with the Jewish sector. To their mind, this required rulings characterized by a recognition of the State of Israel as a fait accompli and a desire to allow Muslims to live an assimilated life within the State of Israel with religious support.
Despite its moderate approach to the Jewish state, members of the southern branch will forever be loyal to the Palestinian narrative. From their standpoint, the Jewish state's existence was forced on them, and they will therefore always lean toward identifying with their Palestinian brethren. For many, this loyalty raises concerns they are hiding their true intentions.
Will Abbas be able to continue to implement the kind of change led by his spiritual teacher Darwish? Will the desire to integrate into Israeli society overcome the identification with Palestinian nationalism? Time will tell.
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