Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

The Jerusalem Post discusses Israel’s Islamic Movement saying that in addition to political activism, both the southern and the more radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement are working hard in the social welfare sphere to occupy every vacuum that the government has failed to fill.

Yitzhak Reiter Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem explained that: “This is the way they work, from [providing] medical services to religious services to even soccer teams…If the government doesn’t give enough money for sports activities or sports facilities, they will construct them by donations and provide the services. By so doing, they will attract particularly the poor – those that don’t have enough money to pay.”

Yousef Jabareen “If the government doesn’t build a hospital here (Umm El Fahm), there is a vacuum…This allows the Islamic Movement to come here and build hospitals, take the credit, provide the service and connect to the people.”

Bearing in mind the trends of de-centralization and the government’s inability to provide services to many citizens in both the Jewish and Arab sector, how can Israel hope to reduce the spread of the Islamic movement’s influence?