[3] Since its inception, Abnaa el-Balad has boycotted involvement in the Israeli Knesset, though it does participate in the elections for municipal councils in Arab localities.
In 1971, he returned to Tel Aviv University to complete his law degree and in December 1973, he was elected to the municipal council in Umm al-Fahm, running on Abnaa el-Balad's platform.
[4] The original aim of Abnaa el-Balad was to counteract Israeli attempts to "divide and rule" by capitalizing on old family feuds between the various representatives in the Arab municipal councils in Israel.
Abnaa el-Balad emphasized the importance of transforming traditional structures and subordinating existing regional, personal and family differences to the national cause.
Helena Cobban notes that this position mirrored the "ideological innovation" introduced by PFLP, and was expressed in Kiwan's statement that, "We say that the only true legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs is the Palestine Liberation Organization...This is the first principle.
The movement's programme centered around self-determination for Palestinians inside Israel, explicit support for the PLO, and the eventual establishment of a single democratic state in all of Palestine from the river to the sea.
After winning the December 1973 municipal elections, Kiwan and those in the movement set up a cultural center in Umm al-Fahm with a small library where people could gather to attend public meetings and discuss the Palestinian cause.
[4] Local groups affiliated with Abnaa el-Balad emerged in many Arab towns in the 1970s under different names, such as al-Nahda ("The Rebirth") in Taibeh and al-Bayadir ("The Threshing Floor") in Ar'ara.
David McDowall writes that, "The Uprising vindicated Abna al Balad's insistence on the Palestinian identity of Israel's Arabs [...]"[6] In 1996, Abnaa el-Balad was among a number of political, intellectual and feminist individuals and groups to form part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a coalition that adopted a "Palestinian nationalist" position and called for "a state for all its citizens".
"[1] The website also states that though grassroots organizing, Abnaa al-Balad aims to build civil society institutions and raise the national awareness and collective consciousness of the Palestinian masses.
[1] Ibrahim Makkawi, a member of the movement and professor of Educational Psychology, explained this position further in a paper presented at the Third North American Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement at Rutgers University in October 2003, stating:We refuse to enter the Zionist Knesset, simply because it is (a) in direct contradiction with our national identity as the legitimate owners of the land, (b) it gives legitimacy to the Zionist Entity and support to its myth about democracy, (c) it is a vehicle of cooptation and fragmentation of our leadership and (d) there is virtually nothing that we can achieve through the Knesset with regard to our citizens rights that we cannot do without it.
In Elections in Israel – 2003 where the results of the Mada al-Carmel study were analyzed, it is noted that only 3.8% of registered voters chose not to vote "as a conscious political act," out of the belief that, "[...] the Jewish state and its parliamentary institution are not legitimate and that participation of Arab citizens in the elections turns them into a tool that Israel uses to win legitimacy in their eyes and in the eyes of the world.
Raja Eghbaria explained the reasoning behind the group's opposition as follows:"Going back in history, Jewish immigration to Palestine has always been at the expense of the Palestinian people.
In the early 1980s, Faraj Khnayfus, a leader for Abnaa el-Balad in Shafa'Amr of Druze background, spent three years in jail for refusing to serve in the IDF.
"[21] On 7 February 2004, Mohammad Kana'neh, the General Secretary the movement and a board member for the NGO Ittijah, was arrested in his home in Arrabe at four in the morning.
Adalah submitted that, "These GSS actions violated the political activists' rights to due process, life, privacy, and dignity.
Even according to the state attorney, Hussam didn't know about the 'hidden instructions' but the prosecution claimed that he should have "known that passing those electric devices will harm Israel's security."
At February 2005, Hussam Kana'neh accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to "Supplying services to an unlawful association", "Conspiracy to assist the enemy at time of war", and "contact with a foreign agent".
[28] Husam's friends and supporters – most of them Jewish colleagues who knew him from his work as a psychologist in the health services of the impoverished neighborhoods in Jaffa – followed the trial and established a special website in his support [29] Abnaa el-Balad strongly condemned the court decisions and stated: "We consider the Court sentence a continuation of the repression and persecutions against our movement and against all the Arab masses and their leadership inside the 1948 territories.