Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 11)
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- Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 11)
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Interview with Raja Aghbariya
«We must fight - we have no choice.»
This interview with Raja Aghbariya, secretary-general of Abna Al Balad, was conducted in June by
DP staff member Itimad Musa in London, where he was participating in the Return group’s confer-
ence(see DP no. 39). In it, Mr. Aghbariya speaks honestly about the failures and achievements of
Abna Al Balad, its conflicts with the PLO, the intifada and the future of his organization and the
Palestinians inside the 1948 occupied territories.
F~
When was Abna Al Balad founded and why?
Some youths from Um Al Fahm and two or three persons
that came from Al Ard movement, which had been banned in
1965, began to try to do something after the 1967 war. All the
Arabs were shocked. All the time they had been waiting for the
Arab countries to liberate them from the Israelis and Zionism.
Then in six days something terrible had happened: all the Pales-
tinian land, all the Palestinian people were under occupation.
The Palestinians inside Israel had lived under an Israeli military
regime until 1965, and two years after that the authorities trans-
ferred all the occupation infrastructure to the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. So these youth - some Arab nationalists, some
Trotskyists, some from the Communist Party - were looking for
a new way to express their Palestinian identity and their rejec-
tion of the new situation. They knew very well the experience of
Al Ard movement - which was a Nasserite Arab nationalist
organization that had been banned by the Israelis because it
didn’t recognize the Israeli state. So they began to think of how
to create a local organization in Um Al Fahm. Actually, they
called it Abna Al Balad because the name has two meanings. On
the one hand, it means «the sons of the village,» but the real
translation is «the sons of the country.» They played with the
name because they were afraid of what the authorities’ reaction
might be to anything other than a local organization.
They began by putting forth a list of candidates in the 1972
{ocal council elections. They succeeded in winning one seat in
1972, and many people began joining at that time because it was
a local organization. They raised two slogans:the one against
the clan system of representation in the local council, where can-
didate lists represented families and not political organizations,
and the other against the parties that were active in Um Al
Fahm. Abna Al Balad did not want to operate as a political
party. They opened a club after their success in the council and
began giving lectures, publishing platforms and leaflets about
every subject, slowly beginning to speak about politics.
Democratic Palestine, July-August 1990
When the PLO began to say that it represented all the
Palestinian people, uniting them politically, this affected the
situation inside the green line. Later in 1975, Abna Al Balad
began saying that the Palestinians inside the green line are an
integral part of the Palestinian people and notan integral part of
the Israeli people, which is what the Communist Party and all
the other Zionist parties had been saying. So this stand is what
set Abna Al Balad apart at the beginning. Abna Al Balad began
moving into other villages and the universities, and became very
strong after Land Day in 1976 - the first big strike by all Arabs
inside the green line. I was a member of Abna Al Balad by then,
having been active in university and joining the movement in
1975. We published our first national leaflet about Land Day in
1976. I think that was the day Abna Al Balad changed from a
iocal to a national movement. After that, the PLO and the
Palestinian revolution began to be strong, and all the Palestinian
people became infused with a national soul. Abna Al Balad was
also affected by this and became an organization that rep-
resented this soul.
We worked without a political program until 1978. Until
then we had positions, but no ideological program. We began to
think about a program in 1978 after we succeeded in three out of
four universities in winning the leadership of the majority of
Arab students. But at that time Abna Al Balad wasn’t really
united and organized. Everybody thought that if you are a
Palestinian and believe the PLO represents you, then you are
Abna Al Balad. When we began to discuss this, we discovered
tragic differences between the various positions, especially in
Um AI Fahm because that’s where Abna Al Balad was founded.
We succeeded in 1978 to write a primary program, but the differ-
ences remained as to whether or not we wanted to form a party
and participate in the Israeli elections to the Knesset, and if we
are an integral part of the Palestinian-Arab national arena
against Zionism. We split in 1983 in Um Al Fahm, because that
is where the biggest branch was. The split was over whether or
not to take part in Knesset elections, with the other side support-
ing the Progressive List for Peace (PLP).
Why did Abna Al Balad oppose participating in
Knesset elections?
We don’t think that we can solve the class and national
question from the Knesset. We know that this is a difficult posi-
tion to explain to the people who have regularly participated in
elections. Arabs have, in the past, voted in larger numbers than
Jews in Knesset elections. The position of the PLO has also
encouraged more people to vote. But what has happened in the
past two months with Peres validated our long-held position that
this state is racist. As this is a Jewish and Zionist state, we are
not, we cannot and they don’t want us to be considered as part of
the regime in Israel. The last two months Peres hasn’t succeeded
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