Summary
Balad (Hizb al-Tajammu’ al-Watani), the party founded in 1995 by Awad Abdel Fattah, Azmi Bishara and others, which in Chapter 10 of Rethinking Statehood in Palestine challenged Israel’s characterisation as a Jewish state with the demand for “a state of all its citizens” (Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, PDF p.281-288).
Details
- Founded against the accelerating “process of Israelization” — the marginalisation of Palestinians and gradual joining of Zionist parties — it demanded equal rights at civic and national levels while accepting the two-state consensus of the time (PDF p.281).
- The chapter prints the party as “the NDP” and “the NDP-Hadash” list for the 1996 elections, in which it gained three seats with Hadash (PDF p.282, as printed).
- From 1997 its leader Bishara floated a binational state (PDF p.282); its secretary general Mtanes Shehadeh in 2017 questioned whether the Zionist left, as part of a colonial project, can offer a solution according with Palestinian natural rights (PDF p.287).
- It joined the Joint List formed in 2015 (PDF p.289).
Related pages
Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, Azmi Bishara, Abna’ al-Balad, Joint List, Binationalism