Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T17:24:20.133Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Service Provision by Minority Religious Organizations: A Case Study of the Islamic Movement in Kafr Qassim

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2019

RANA ESEED
RANA ESEED*
Affiliation:
School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examines what motivates an organization representing a religious-national minority to provide social services. The case study for examining this issue is the Islamic Movement in Palestinian society in Israel, and specifically its social activities in the town of Kafr Qassim. The article analyzes the factors leading to the development of the movement’s various services in the town by tracing their historical development and current offerings. This case study analysis is informed by two theoretical bodies of knowledge: the development of NGOs and the development of faith-based organizations. The data is based upon 17 semi-structured in-depth interviews with the heads of all the social services, social activists and municipality representatives in Kafr Qassim, where the movement was established. Some of the interviews also include tours and observations of actual services provision. Additional sources include archival documents, such as the organization’s regulations and work plans. The findings identify three main factors in the development of minority religious organizations: government failure in providing services (necessary factor) and religious ideology and mobilization of political support as secondary factors. All three are grounded in the ongoing conflict between the Palestinian minority group and the state.

Keywords

Faith-based organizations (FBOs)Social service provisionGovernment failurePalestinian societyIslamic MovementIsrael
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 507 - 524
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aburaiya, I. (2004), The 1996 split of the Islamic Movement in Israel: Between the holy text and Israeli-Palestinian context. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 17, 439–455.10.1023/B:IJPS.0000019612.42870.6dCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adalah (2011), The inequality report: The Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. Haifa, Israel: Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.Google Scholar
Adamson, F. (2005), Islam in Europe: The Challenges of Institutionalization. Council for European Studies at Columbia University.Google Scholar
Ali, N. (2004), Political Islam in an ethnic Jewish state: Historical evolution, contemporary challanges and future prospects. Holy Land Studies, 1, 69–92.Google Scholar
Ali, N. (2013), Between Ovadia and Abdullah: Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. Tel Aviv: Resling. (In Hebrew)Google Scholar
Attar-Schwartz, S., Ben-arieh, A. and Khoury-kassabri, M. (2017), The geography of children’s welfare in Israel: The role of nationality, religion, socio-economic factors and social worker availability. British Journal of Social Work, 41, 1122–1139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. (1957), The economics of discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Berger, J. (2003), Religious nongovernmental organizations: An exploratory analysis. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 14, 15–40.10.1023/A:1022988804887CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bielefeld, W. and Cleveland, W. S. (2013), Faith-based organizations as service providers and their relationship to government. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42, 468–494.10.1177/0899764013485160CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billis, D. (2010), Hybrid organizations and the third sector: Challenges for practice, theory and policy. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bowen, G. A. (2009), Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9, 27–40.10.3316/QRJ0902027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cammett, M. (2014), Compassionate communalism: Welfare and sectarianism in Lebanon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.10.7591/9780801470332CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J. (2004), Islam, charity and activism: Middle-class networks and social welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yamen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, G. (2006), Faith matters: Faith-based organisations, civil socity and international development. Journal of International Development, 18, 835–848.10.1002/jid.1317CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, M. (2011), Development and religion: Theology and practice. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, M. and Ware, V. (2015), Understanding faith-based organizations: How FBOs are contrasted with NGOs in international development literature. Progress in Development Studies, 15, 37–48.10.1177/1464993414546979CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cnaan, R. (1985), Racial differences in social service delivery: Jews and non-Jews in Israel. Social Development Issues, 10, 56–74.Google Scholar
Cnaan, R., Boddie, S., Handy, F., Yancey, G. and Schneider, R. (2002), The invisible caring hand: American congregations and the provision of welfare. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Cnaan, R. A. and Curtis, D. W. (2013), Religious congregations as voluntary associations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42, 7–33.10.1177/0899764012460730CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doron, A. (2007), Multiculturalism and the erosion of support for the universalistic welfare state: The Israeli experience. Israel Studies, 12, 92–108.10.2979/ISR.2007.12.3.92CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endeweld, M., Barkali, N., Gottlieb, D. and Heller, O. (2016), Poverty and social gaps report: Poverty and social gaps in 2015. Jerusalem: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
Flanigan, S. T. and Abdel-Samad, M. (2009), Hezbollah’s social jihad: Nonprofits as resistance organizations. Middle East Policy, 16, 122–137.10.1111/j.1475-4967.2009.00396.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flanigan, S. T., Asal, V. and Brown, M. (2014), Community service provision by political associations representing minorities in the Middle East and North Africa. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 26, 1786–1804.10.1007/s11266-014-9516-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gal, J. (2017), The Israeli welfare state system. In Aspalter, I. C. (Ed.), The Routledge international handbook to welfare state systems (pp. 332–364), London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gidron, B., Bar., M.Katz, H. (2004), The Israeli third sector: Between welfare state and civil society. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Göçmen, I. (2013), The role of faith-based organizations in social welfare systems: A comparison of France, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42, 495–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hackney, C. H. and Sanders, G. S. (2003), Religiosity and Mental Health: A Meta–Analysis of Recent Studies. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42, 43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heist, D. H. and Cnaan, R. A. (2016), Faith-based international development work : A review. Religions, 7, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibrahim, M. (1990), The Islamic Movement in Israel. Givat Haviva, Israel: The Institution of Arabs Studies. (In Hebrew)Google Scholar
Jamal, A. (2008), The political ethos of Palestinian citizens of Israel: Critical reading in the Future Vision documents. Israel Studies Forum, 23, 3–28.10.3167/isf.2008.230201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamal, A. (2017), Arab civil society in Israel: New elites, social capital and oppositional consciousness. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (In Hebrew)Google Scholar
Jawad, R. (2009), Social welfare and religion in the Middle East: A Lebanese perspective. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Jawad, R. (2011), Religion and faith-based welfare in the UK: From wellbeing to ways of being. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Lewin, A. C. and Stier, H. (2002), Who benefits the most? The unequal allocation of transfers in the Israeli welfare state. Social Science Quarterly, 83, 488–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mustafa, M. (2013), Political participation of the Islamic Movement in Israel. In Rekhess, E., and Rudnitzky, A. (Eds.), Muslim minorities in non-Muslim majority countries: The Isalmic Movement in Israel as a test case (pp. 95–115), Tel Aviv: The Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation, Tel Aviv University.Google Scholar
Payes, S. (2003), Palestinian NGOs in Israel: A campaign for civic equality in a non-civic state. Israel Studies, 8, 60–90.10.2979/ISR.2003.8.1.60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peled, A. R. (2001), Towards autonomy? The Islamist Movement’s quest for control of Islamic institutions in Israel. The Middle East Journal, 55, 378–398.Google Scholar
Quadagno, J. (1994), The color of welfare. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rivlin, P. (2011), The Israeli economy from the foundation of the state through the 21st century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenhek, Z. (2002), Social policy and nationbuilding: The dynamics of the Israeli welfare state. Journal of Societal & Social Policy, 1, 15–31.Google Scholar
Rosenhek, Z. and Shalev, M. (2000), The contradictions of Palestinian citizenship in Israel: Inclusion and exclusion in the Israeli welfare state. Butenschon, N. A. and Rosenhek, Z..Google Scholar
Rosmer, T. (2012), Resisting “Israelization”: The Islamic Movement in Israel and the realization of Islamization, Palestinization and Arabization. Journal of Islamic Studies, 23, 325–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, S. (2011), Hamas and the civil society: Engaging the Islamist social sector. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salamon, L. M. and Anheier, H. K. (1996), Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9, 213–248.10.1023/A:1022058200985CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salamon, L., Sokolowski, S. and Haddock, M. (2017), Explaining civil society development: A social origins approach. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, J. A. (2013), Introduction to the symposium: Faith-based organizations in context. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42, 431–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, R. J. and Unruh, H. R. (2004), Typology of Religious Characteristics of Social Service and Educational Organizations and Programs. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(1), 109–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764003257494CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stake, R. E. (2000), Case studies. In Denzin, N. K., and Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.) (pp. 435–454), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Tesler, R. (2000), The party movement as a hybrid organization: The case study of Shas. PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (In Hebrew).Google Scholar
Vigdor, J. (2004), Community composition and collective action: Analyzing initial mail response to the 2000 census. Review of Economics and Statistics, 86, 303–312.10.1162/003465304323023822CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warden, R., Scourfield, J. and Huxley, P. (2017), Islamic social work in the UK: The service user experience. British Journal of Social Work, 47, 737–754.Google Scholar
Weisbrod, B. (1988), The nonprofit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weisbrod, B. (1998), To profit or not to profit: The commercial transformation of the nonprofit sector. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511625947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wickham, C. R. (2003), Mobilizing Islam: Religion, activism and political change in Egypt. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wiktorowicz, Q. (2004), Introduction: Islamic activism and social movement theory. In Wiktorowicz, Q. (Ed.), Islamic activism: A social movement theory approach, (pp. 1–36). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Yishai, Y. (1998), Civil society in transition: Interest politics in Israel. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 555, 147–162.10.1177/0002716298555001010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zehavi, A. (2012), Moving in opposite directions? Religious involvement in welfare provision in Israel and the Low Countries. Social Service Review, 86, 429–453.10.1086/667778CrossRefGoogle Scholar