Abnaa el-Balad ( ar, ابناء البلد, ''Sons of the Land'' or ''Sons and Daughters of the Country'' or ''People of the Homeland Movement'') is a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

Arab nationalist movement made up of Palestinians, most of whom are Arab citizens of Israel. The stated goals of the movement are: the return of all Palestinian refugees, an end to Israeli's occupation of territories and the establishment of a democratic, secular

Palestinian state Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state located in Western Asia. Officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization ( ...

. Abnaa el-Balad membership is open to and includes

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

citizens of Israel who identify as

Palestinian Jews Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region (known in Hebrew as ''Eretz Yisrael'', ) prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The common term used to refer to the Jewish commu ...

.Yoav Bar is a member of Abnaa el-Balad's central committee and identifies himself in this article, as a "Palestinian Jew." Since its inception, Abnaa el-Balad has boycotted involvement in the Israeli

Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...

, though it does participate in the elections for municipal councils in Arab localities.

Origins and early political organizing

The movement grew out of student organizing among Palestinians in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One of the co-founders, Mohammed Kiwan, was active in establishing a committee of Arab students at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

between 1967 and 1969. In 1969, he was placed under house arrest in

Umm al-Fahm Umm al-Fahm ( ar, أمّ الفحم, ''Umm al-Faḥm''; he, אוּם אֶל-פַחֶם ''Um el-Faḥem'') is a city located northwest of Jenin in the Haifa District of Israel. In its population was , nearly all of whom are Arab citizens of Is ...

, at which point he began organizing to establish Abnaa el-Balad. In 1971, he returned to Tel Aviv University to complete his law degree and in December 1973, he was elected to the municipal council in

, running on Abnaa el-Balad's platform. The original aim of Abnaa el-Balad was to counteract Israeli attempts to "

divide and rule Divide and rule policy ( la, divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their ter ...

" by capitalizing on old family feuds between the various representatives in the Arab municipal councils in Israel. Abnaa el-Balad emphasized the importance of transforming traditional structures and subordinating existing regional, personal and family differences to the national cause. According to Kiwan, Abnaa el-Balad differed from other Palestinian groups in Israel at the time in that, "The problem for us is ... the question of the

Palestinian people Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

Helena Cobban Helena Cobban (born 1952) is a British-American writer and researcher on international relations, with special interests in the Middle East, the international system, and transitional justice. She is a non-resident Senior fellow at the Washingt ...

notes that this position mirrored the "ideological innovation" introduced by

PFLP The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( ar, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين, translit=al-Jabhah al-Sha`biyyah li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn, PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary so ...

, and was expressed in Kiwan's statement that, "We say that the only true legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs is the Palestine Liberation Organization...This is the first principle. Secondly, that all the Palestinian people, everywhere, constitute one identity." Abnaa el-Balad rejected the idea of working within Israel's parliamentary institution, the

. By forming a network of local groups, they hoped to gain power and empower the community through the use of local municipal councils and popular activities. The movement's programme centered around self-determination for Palestinians inside Israel, explicit support for the PLO, and the eventual establishment of a single democratic state in all of Palestine from the river to the sea. After winning the December 1973 municipal elections, Kiwan and those in the movement set up a cultural center in Umm al-Fahm with a small library where people could gather to attend public meetings and discuss the Palestinian cause. Local groups affiliated with Abnaa el-Balad emerged in many Arab towns in the 1970s under different names, such as ''al-Nahda'' ("The Rebirth") in Taibeh and ''al-Bayadir'' ("The Threshing Floor") in

Ar'ara Ar'ara ( ar, عرعرة, he, עַרְעָרָה; lit. "Juniper tree")Palmer, 1881p.144/ref> is an Israeli Arab or Palestinian town in the Wadi Ara region in northern Israel. It is located southwest of Umm al-Fahm just northwest of the Green L ...

. Abnaa el-Balad was one of many groups to help organize the

Land Day Land Day ( ar, يوم الأرض, ''Yawm al-ʾArḍ''; he, יוֹם הַאֲדָמָה, ''Yom HaAdama''), March 30, is a day of commemoration for Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians of the events of that date in 1976 in Israel. In 1976, ...

(''Yom Al Ard'') demonstration on 30 March 1976 as a way of defending Palestinian rights to the land and defying and challenging Israeli land confiscation policies. In 1984, a split formed within Abnaa el-Balad, and a breakaway movement called Al Ansar emerged calling for participation in the Israeli elections. However, by 1987, Al Ansar's numbers dwindled and the group fragmented thereafter. Abnaa el-Balad managed to recover its community support, particularly after the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987. David McDowall writes that, "The Uprising vindicated Abna al Balad's insistence on the Palestinian identity of Israel's Arabs .. In 1996, Abnaa el-Balad was among a number of political, intellectual and feminist individuals and groups to form part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a coalition that adopted a "Palestinian nationalist" position and called for "a state for all its citizens". Headed by

Azmi Bishara Azmi Bishara ( ar, عزمي بشارة born 22 July 1956) is an Israeli Arab public intellectual, political philosopher and author. He is presently the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Chair of the ...

, the NDA ran in the 1996

elections and Bishara gained a seat, serving in Israel's parliament for 11 years, before leaving the country and resigning his post. On 18 January 1998, Abnaa el-Balad left the National Democratic Alliance.

More on political positions and affiliations

The goals of Abnaa al-Balad today, as described on their website, are:

"to preserve the collective national identity of the Arab Palestinians in Israel, link their struggle to that of the rest of their exiled brethren (especially the refugees right of return) and continue the struggle for the
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
and equality within the state which was imposed on them."

The website also states that though grassroots organizing, Abnaa al-Balad aims to build

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.national awareness and collective consciousness of the Palestinian masses. This struggle is linked by Abnaa el-Balad to the struggle against imperialism,

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

and

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

and their aims in the region.

Boycotting of Knesset

Since Israeli electoral law forbids any organization calling to abolish the Jewish character of the state to take part in the

elections, Abnaa al-Balad boycotts what it calls the "

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

electoral process". Ibrahim Makkawi, a member of the movement and professor of Educational Psychology, explained this position further in a paper presented at the Third North American Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in October 2003, stating:

We refuse to enter the Zionist Knesset, simply because it is (a) in direct contradiction with our national identity as the legitimate owners of the land, (b) it gives legitimacy to the Zionist Entity and support to its myth about democracy, (c) it is a vehicle of cooptation and fragmentation of our leadership and (d) there is virtually nothing that we can achieve through the Knesset with regard to our citizens rights that we cannot do without it."

Leftist organizations like Abnaa al-Balad made abstention and the blank vote the center of their political campaigns in the 1999 elections. Although voter turnout increased by just over 30,000, the percentage turnout (70%) was down slightly (reflecting a population increase), and well below predictions of 87%.Frisch, H. (2001
The Arab Vote in the Israeli Elections: The Bid for Leadership
Israel Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 2 & 3, pp 153-170 In ''Israel at the Polls 2003'', it is noted that Arab voting participation dropped to 62% in the 2003 elections, a drop partially attributed to calls by Abnaa el-Balad to boycott the elections. A May 2003 study by Mada al-Carmel, a Palestinian-Israeli research institute, exploring why Arab voters abstained in the 2003 Israeli elections determined that 43.4% of non-voters abstained from voting for political reasons, and that this group represented some 14% of registered voters. The majority of these (some 11.2% of registered voters) were protesting the political situation and Israeli policies in the

occupied territories Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...

. In ''Elections in Israel - 2003'' where the results of the Mada al-Carmel study were analyzed, it is noted that only 3.8% of registered voters chose not to vote "as a conscious political act," out of the belief that,

" ..the Jewish state and its parliamentary institution are not legitimate and that participation of Arab citizens in the elections turns them into a tool that Israel uses to win legitimacy in their eyes and in the eyes of the world. Those who advocate a boycott on these grounds believe that it is not possible to achieve political gains through elections in Israel's present political structure, and certainly not at the price of granting legitimacy to the Jewish state."

The authors go on to describe the "extra-parliamentary" Abnaa al-Balad as the most prominent representative of this school of thought. Abnaa el-Balad called for Palestinian citizens of Israel to boycott the 2006 Knesset elections through its affiliated organization, The Popular Committee for Boycotting the Knesset Elections ( ar, اللجنة الشعبية لمقاطعة انتخابات الكنيس).

Opposing Jewish immigration

Abnaa al-Balad was the only Palestinian organization based in Israel to move from passive reservations to active opposition to the increased immigration of

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

s to Israel from the

Former Soviet Union The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

(FSU) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Raja Ighbaria explained the reasoning behind the group's opposition as follows:

"Going back in history, Jewish immigration to Palestine has always been at the expense of the Palestinian people. It resulted in the expulsion of Palestinians from their
homeland A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethn ...
. Adding one million Jews to Israel he Soviet immigrationforms an actual danger to the very fact of our existence. Transfer of the remaining Palestinians comes closer to realization than it had been before."

The movement circulated pamphlets and petitions that expressed opposition to Russian immigration. A 3 August 1990 pamphlet, entitled "What are We Waiting For? Immigrants are Penetrating our Doors and Threatening Our Lands" called for joint action with "oppressed Jews" (that is,

Mizrahim Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...

) to halt the immigration and for Arabs to participate in a demonstration in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

and the

Negev The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its sout ...

on 5 August. According to Majid Al Haj, the opposition articulated by Abnaa el-Balad " ..never crossed the line into active resistance." It remained " ..a limited attempt to mobilize the Arab public in Israel to speak openly against immigration from the FSU."

Participation in local and international movements and conferences

In 1992 and 1993, the Abnaa el-Balad Movement and the

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

of the same name participated in The Ninth and Tenth

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

International NGO Meetings on the Question of Palestine which were held under the auspices of the

Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) is a committee mandated by the United Nations General Assembly in order to promote the rights of the Palestinian people, support the peace process and to ...

Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...

and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, respectively. Abnaa al-Balad was one of a number of Arab civil society organizations in Israel to present at the "I Will Not Serve" national conference which discussed the reasons why Arab citizens of Israel should resist mandatory civic service.

Arrests of members

In a study of ''Palestinian NGOs in Israel'' (2005), Shany Payes writes that the state response to the challenge posed by Palestinian activists like Abnaa el-Balad has been to adopt a policy of 'active exclusion'; that is, "denying the Palestinian leadership in Israel access to the avenues of publicity or decision-making." According to Payes, state authorities in Israel used "security considerations" to justify restrictions on organizing and publishing by groups considered a "security risk". Several of Abnaa el-Balad's leaders have been arrested or otherwise detained. In the early 1980s, Faraj Khnayfus, a leader for Abnaa el-Balad in Shafa'Amr of Druze background, spent three years in jail for refusing to serve in the

IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...

.In Israel, military service for Arab citizens of Israel who are Druze is compulsory. During the 80s and especially at the time of the First Intifada (1987–1990), Many of the movement's members were detained, accused in different accusations most of them graffitty, raising Palestinian flags, 'rioting' (during demonstrations) and property destruction, and hundreds of members were imprisoned to periods between 3 months and 6 years.> At the beginning of the Second Intifada, central committee member, Yoav Bar, was arrested on 2 October 2000 during "an initially peaceful protest in

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

". According to Amnesty International, Bar " ..was dragged by the legs for more than 50 meters by two police officers with his back sliding along the street, while other police officers beat him with batons. He was beaten again in a police car. He told the police that he thought his hand was broken; the police refused to give him any medical treatment." Released at midnight the same day, "Yoav Bar's left hand was broken in three places. Two of his ribs were broken, and two of his front teeth were broken. His back was also injured as a result of being dragged along the street." In 2003, in response to the campaign of persecuation against the leadership of the Islamic Movement, the 'Committee for the Defense of Freedoms' was formed by the follow up committee in purpose of "confronting political persecution and harassment against Palestinian political movements and attacks against Palestinian organizations in Israel, which includes organizations such as the Islamic Movement, the Abnaa al-Balad Movement, and support groups of prisoners as "Ansar al-Sajeen"."

2004 arrests

On 7 February 2004, Mohammad Kana'neh, the General Secretary the movement and a board member for the

Ittijah, was arrested in his home in Arrabe at four in the morning. According to the legal advocacy group, Adalah, during the search of his home, Israeli police beat his son, wife, and mother. Also arrested that day was Mohammed's brother, Hussam Kana'neh (also known as Majed), a central committee member of Abnaa el-Balad. Initially, no reasons were provided for their arrest, nor were they allowed contact to their lawyer, and a court hearing the night of their arrest granted the police the right to detain them for 10 days. Also arrested that same day was Sahar Abdo, a secretary for ''The New Generation'' magazine published by the Balad Association (the NGO of the same name as the movement). Yoav Bar was removed from his home at four in the morning by police and taken to the movement's club in the city. During a search of the premises, " ..security personnel destroyed the furniture, ripped pictures from the walls, walked on photos of the victims of the Israeli occupation, threw trash, cleaning chemicals, oil, and grease on piles of books and magazines that had been thrown on the floor, and wrote curses and obscenities on the walls. During this time, Yoav Bar was threatened and cursed; one officer told him, 'If it were up to me, I would shoot you in the head.'" Adalah recounts these same accusations in its March 2004 press release, writing that, "One of the police officers that searched the Haifa offices stated to an Abnaa al-Balad member who was also present, that if it were up to him, he would 'put a bullet in your ishead right now.'" Youssef Abu Ali, an activist with Abnaa al-Balad in

Sakhnin Sakhnin ( ar, سخنين; he, סַחְ'נִין or ''Sikhnin'') is an Arab city in Israel's Northern District. It is located in the Lower Galilee, about east of Acre. Sakhnin was declared a city in 1995. In its population was , mostly Musl ...

, was arrested a few days after the arrests of the Kana'neh brothers, Bar and Abdo, on 12 February 2004 at 2:30 in the morning. His detention was extended by seven days before the Acre court and he was denied the right to see his attorney. By the end of February, 2004, Sahar Abdo, and Youssef Abu Ali had been released after 24 days of detention without the laying of any charges. All were subjected to abusive interrogation techniques and had been denied access to a lawyer and their families for 18 to 21 days. According to Adalah, the interrogation methods used by the General Security Services (GSS) included tying the activists to their chairs, sleep deprivation, the refusal to provide essential medical treatment when needed, preventing them from bathing for long periods of time, and providing them with "inaccurate, misleading information" about their basic legal rights. Adalah submitted that, "These GSS actions violated the political activists' rights to due process, life, privacy, and dignity." On 4 March 2004, Mohamad Kana'neh was indicted on three counts of "contact with a foreign agent": he was accused of meeting Dr. George Habash, the founder of the

in Jordan, Ibrahim 'Ajweh "Abu - Yaffa", a Fatah member and anti-globalization/anti-normalization activist from Jordan, and visiting Ahmad Sa'adat, the general secretary of the PFLP in Jericho prison. His brother Hussam Kana'neh was indicted for transferring paramedical equipment from Ibrahim 'Ajweh to Jenin. According to the prosecution inside this equipment were hidden instructions for making explosives. Even according to the state attorney, Hussam didn't know about the 'hidden instructions' but the prosecution claimed that he should have "known that passing those electric devices will harm Israel's security." Before the indictment, the prosecution held a big press conference, linking Mohammad and Hussam Kana'neh to Hezbollah. This accusation was never presented in court. On October 10, 2004 Mohamad Kana'aneh accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to one count of "contact with a foreign agent" - Ibrahim 'Ajweh. Although the prosecution agreed that all the contacts between the two were public as part of Mohamad Kana'neh's political activity, the state requested a 6 years sentence. The

District Court sentenced him to 30 months of imprisonment and 2 years suspended incarceration. At February 2005, Hussam Kana'neh accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to "Supplying services to an unlawful association", "Conspiracy to assist the enemy at time of war", and "contact with a foreign agent". He was sentenced to 10 1/2 years of imprisonment. Husam's friends and supporters - most of them Jewish colleagues who knew him from his work as a psychologist in the health services of the impoverished neighborhoods in Jaffa - followed the trial and established a special website in his support Abnaa el-Balad strongly condemned the court decisions and stated: "We consider the Court sentence a continuation of the repression and persecutions against our movement and against all the Arab masses and their leadership inside the 1948 territories. Abnaa el-Balad will check with our lawyers the legal implications of this case as well as the possibility of appealing to such an unjust verdict. In November 2005, an Israeli appeals court extended Mohammad Kana'neh's sentence by two years to four and a half years imprisonmen

External links

The movement's website
(English page)

(from its website)
Imprisonment details on Autonomy & Solidarity
(activist website)

(from 2003)
Adalah website
Palestinian human rights organization in Israel involved in the case.

References

{{reflist Non-governmental organizations involved in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Political organizations based in Israel Arab citizens of Israel