Hamas and Israel's Islamic movement

Scott Wilson:

Ibrahim Sarsur, the former mayor of this Arab city with a view of Tel Aviv's skyline, stepped onto the plywood platform soon after the evening call to prayer. Over his shoulder, a green banner warned, "Voting for the Zionist parties is supporting those who spilled our blood, robbed our land and violated our holy places."

"If you give your vote to them, a Jew will enter and an Arab will not," Sarsur shouted to the hundreds of men filling rows of white plastic chairs in a smoke-filled community center. "Islam has opened our hearts -- this is our message.

"Why do you have to vote?" he asked, then answered his question: "For this program that connects this life with the next life."

With national elections less than a month away, parties that represent Israel's Arab population are struggling to maintain their small foothold in the Israeli parliament. As the parties grapple with new legal barriers, fresh competition and a frustrated constituency, at least one coalition is drawing a lesson from Hamas's recent victory in the Palestinian territories: The solution is Islam.

The United Arab List has adopted an explicitly Islamic message in the hopes of inspiring thousands of Arab voters who have boycotted past elections. Using Koranic verse and showcasing religious candidates, Sarsur's party, called the Islamic Movement, and its secular-nationalist partner are seeking to unite Israel's religious Islamic parties, who like their more radical Palestinian counterparts have long disagreed over whether to take part in elections that, in effect, presume the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

By winning a parliamentary majority in its first national elections, Hamas has validated for many members of Israel's religious Islamic parties the virtue of participating in mainstream politics. But the Islamic turn here has alarmed a coalition of Zionist parties, which narrowly failed last week to have the United Arab List disqualified from the March 28 elections for advocating the creation of an Islamic state in Israel.

"Hamas gave the Islamists here an example to follow," said Jafar Farah, director of the Musawa Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. "The Arab parties will never win a majority here, so their position is much different. But Hamas's participation has affected positively the discussion within Israel's Islamic movement."

In a recent interview at his home, festooned with ribbons celebrating his second pilgrimage to Mecca this year, Sarsur said the success of his candidate list depends on his ability to get Islamic voters to the polls. Only 62 percent of eligible Arabs cast ballots in Israel's 2003 elections, their lowest turnout in a parliamentary election. The goal this time, Sarsur said, is to increase turnout by 10 percentage points. By his estimate, that would translate into a two-seat gain for the Arab parties in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

"We are concentrating on the religious elements, using religious terminology, in trying to appeal to the hearts of those who have been boycotting," Sarsur said. "We are trying to persuade all Islamists that having us in the Knesset is of greater value than a boycott."

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