The Islamicization of the Jewish-Arab Conflict: Contemporary Discourse of Islamic Movements in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel

Although rejection of Zionism had been long rooted in Islamic discourse and practice, since the publication of the PLO Charter in the mid-1960s, the then Palestinian national movement explained its rejection of Zionism and the Jewish state in secular terms current in international political discourse.

This presentation will discuss the sea change introduced by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, in 1988, when it published its Charter, offering an Islamic alternative to the mostly secular platform of the PLO. Hamas had thus Islamicized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinian national movement and Palestinian national identity. This foundational transformation had far-reaching impact on Palestinian perspectives on Israel, Zionism and Judaism.

 In recent years, a similar transition is apparent within the Islamic Movement in Israel. In various books, articles, and pamphlets, Yahudiyyat al-Dawla wal-Dakhil al-Filastini, (The Jewishness of the State and the Palestinian ‘Inside’) for example, the Movement introduced a new narrative which rejects the Jewish state of Israel not only on political grounds, but on religious ones, as well. Thus it views the negative implications of the “Jewish nature of the state” from the perspective of the Palestinians in Israel. Sheikh Ra’id Salah, leader of the Northern Faction of the Movement, similarly equated the Jewishness of the state with colonialism, alluding to a widely disseminated belief that the notion of the “Jewish people” was invented.  Faced with reality of living within the Jewish state, the Northern faction also constructed a narrative of “Internal Hijra (migration)” which would enable the Islamists in Israel to create secluded enclaves, governed by Sharia, while still remaining under Israeli rule. This presentation will examine the political and ideological roots of this transition and its repercussions.