Politics and Government
The growing influence of fundamentalist Islam has been noted by several scholars.
In 1999, 500 residents were hurt in riots protesting government expropriation of lands. In September 2000, rioting at the onset of the Second Intifada left three dead and over 100 wounded. Since the 1990s, the municipality has been run by the Northern Islamic Movement. Ex-mayor Sheikh Raed Salah was arrested in 2003 on charges of raising millions of dollars for Hamas. He was freed after two years in prison. Sheikh Hashem Abd al-Rahman was elected mayor in 2007, and replaced in November 2008 by Khaled Aghbariyya.
In a survey of Umm al-Fahm residents conducted by and published in the Israeli-Arab weekly Kul Al-Arab in July 2000, 83% of respondents opposed the idea of transferring their city to Palestinian jurisdiction.
Read more about this topic: Umm Al-Fahm
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“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
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