“It is an attack not just on the northern Islamic Movement but on our entire community”, he told Middle East Eye.
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Half a million Palestinians are now deprived from the social aids, which have been given by the Islamic Movement, said Salah.
According to one minister who participated in the latest deliberations, as cited by Haaretz, Cohen said the northern branch had more than 10,000 members – Arab citizens of Israel – and it was neither wise nor practical to declare all of them criminals.
Israeli police lock the front doors of the Jaffa Association for Charity after ordering the closure of 17 relief groups affiliated with the Islamic Movement of Northern Israel. 13 when Israel introduced age-based restrictions on entering Al-Aqsa to coincide with a series of Jewish holidays, when many Jews visit the site, which they also consider holy.
The cells operate at Beit Berel College, Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and Haifa University, among others.
The violence has been fuelled by Palestinian allegations – denied by Israel – of a government plot to erode Muslim control of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque complex, which Jews revere as vestige of their biblical temples.
Israel outlawed on Tuesday the Islamic Movement inside the 1948 occupied Palestinians territories. “This move is not directed against the Arab and Muslim public in Israel, the great majority of which upholds the laws of the state and disavows incitement and terrorism”, the Prime Minister’s Office emphasized.
Salah is due to start an 11-month prison term next week after an Israeli court found him guilty of incitement over a sermon he delivered in Jerusalem in 2007. “I am proud to persist as head of the Islamic Movement and will be victorious in its name and victorious in its principles, Jerusalem and the blessed al-Aqsa mosque paramount among them”, Salah said in a statement.
The survey, according to its website, is “based on a survey of adult Arab and Jewish populations, with more than 100 questions on 16 different issues, including segregation, perception of the other, alienation, threats, collective memory, legitimacy of coexistence and the state, the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s integration in the region, identity, minority leadership, means of struggle, and possibilities for change”. It also accused the movement of “continuous incitement to violence and racism”.
“The State of Israel must set an example and spearhead the fight against radical Islam, whose emissaries we saw slaughtering innocents in Paris, New York, Madrid and Israel”, he said. Palestinian attacks, mainly stabbings, have killed 14 Israelis, and at least 83 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including 51 Israel says were involved in assaults.
He also noted that “even the Shin Bet are opposed to the ban”, confirming reports in the Israeli media of the dispute between the influential internal security agency, which feared the move could increase tensions, and police, which supported the move. Since 2001, the Islamic Movement has bussed tens of thousands of supporters to the mosque compound each year to strengthen the Muslim presence.
Salah has had repeated run-ins with authorities and was previously imprisoned for funneling money to Hamas, which rules Gaza. Earlier this year, three organizations suspected of financing the Morabitoun were outlawed by Israel and afterwards declared the groups illegal.
Netanyahu has said the creation of a Palestinian state is contingent upon several conditions, including recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, a demand dismissed outright by the Palestinians.
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Various Israeli security experts and Palestinian activists have attributed the recent wave of Palestinian violence to incitement, particularly over false charges that Israel is threatening the al-Aqsa Mosque.
