Politics in Palestine – Dr. Iyad Bargouti, Dr. Ahmad Majdalani, Dr. Bernard Sabella

This session, held in Arabic with simultaneous translation into English, was part of the Friday conference sessions that were open to the local public. One of the aims of having a day of the conference conducted in Arabic was to encourage local participation and foster real discussion – in a way, to allow the international conference participants to see into the internal dialogues of Palestinian society as they discuss critical issues. As one of the speakers remarked, the agendas are different when Palestinians talk to “the West” versus when they are talking amongst themselves, and it was very interesting for the internationals present to be privy to these internal discussions.

Dr Iyad Bargouti, a leading Palestinian political figure (?), began the session by talking about the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). He said that the PLO was originally secular, according to initial declaration in 1994, in spite of most leaders’ religious ties, but religiosity still existed to a large extent in Palestinian society. This religiosity, along with other factors, led to the emergence of Hamas in 1987 as a resistance movement, opposed to the secularism of the PLO, at the same time as the beginning of the first Intifada.

Dr. Ahmad Majdalani continued the exposition of the relationship between religious and political movements by discussing the history of religious and nationalist agendas. He remarked that Islamists at the time of the beginnings of the Muslim Brotherhood were not associated with the Palestinian nationalist agenda. Furthermore, in 1952, he continued, the main organized Islamist movement was struggling against Jordanian rule, and also against the nationalist movement in Gaza and the West Bank, so they actually ended up on-side with the Israeli Occupation forces in the suppression of the Palestinian nationalist movement. The Palestinian national charter in 1969 called for a secular state in historic Palestine, a joint Arab/Jewish state, but this didn’t happen because the Jews were anxious not to give up Israel’s “Jewish” identity, which seems still to be the majority attitude among Jewish Israelis toward a one-state solution today. However, without a solution for a singular, secular state in historic Palestine, there are now two states where increasing religious extremism affects both internal and external politics. With the increasing Islamicisation of Palestine (not just a Muslim state, which it mainly is by virtue of the Muslim majority, but an Islamist state, where Islamic law presides), it only encourages Israel to become a stronger Jewish state in response.

Dr. Bernard Sabella then brought the presence of Christians into the discussion, saying that Christians have been here for 2000 years, and don’t need anyone else’s endorsement or approval to live and participate in civic life here in Palestine. He expressed concerns over the possibility of a non-secular, Islamic state in Palestine. Regarding religious freedom for non-Muslims, he discussed a passage in Islamic law that says that actions by any religious group should not “infringe on public order”, saying that depending on how “infringing on public order” is defined and interpreted, the enforcement of this guideline could result in restriction and repression of non-Muslim religious expression. He acknowledged that in Hamas’ 2006 electoral platform, they said that Christians and Muslims would be equal under the law, but he still seems to have reservations about what that will look like in action. Religion isn’t the problem, he says, it’s the interpretation of the religion to the detriment of others.