The government announced early Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet had approved the widely expected measure.
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“Netanyahu is a leader who needs to create enemies”, Zahalka said.
The weapons sale comes amid strained relations between the US and Saudi Arabia over the Iran nuclear deal.
The regional turmoil must not forestall the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; on the contrary, it should serve as the catalyst that could end one of the longest conflicts in modern history. So we were out in front of the White House, saying: ‘No. Now he has the Islamic Movement in his sights.
“In this context, the northern branch has established a network of paid activists in order to initiate provocations on the Temple Mount”.
While the world mourns with France over the horrific terrorist attack in Paris last Friday, Israel had stood by them in solidarity, as they have lived under the threat of terrorism since their initial statehood.
“I prefer bilateral; I prefer negotiated moves”, Netanyahu said. The movement funds and organises student associations that teach the Koran. In July 1995, the Israeli police closed the offices of the Movement’s aid committee and confiscated documents and equipment.
As tensions rose in September with an increase in Jewish visitors to Al-Aqsa during their religious holidays, Salah’s wing urged Muslims to go to the compound and defend it. They had regularly clashed with Jewish extremists allowed into the area in ever-increasing numbers by the Israeli authorities. According to him, the step was taken because the group “endangers the State of Israel and cooperates, according to data gathered, with Palestinian terror groups including Hamas, in effort to inflame the region and cause violence”.
The Islamic Movement was founded in the 1970s as both a political party and a provider of religious and welfare services. The group is split between the more radical northern branch and a southern faction which participates in mainstream Israeli politics.
Netanyahu has accused the northern section of inciting the violence with its “Al Aqsa is in danger” rallying cry.
After the security cabinet declared the movement illegal in a meeting late Monday night, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon signed an edict banning any activity connected to the group. But how many? And why do they work in settlements?
Both Zahalka and Ghanem said they feared that Netanyahu would next target Zahalka’s democratic nationalist party, Balad. And Israel’s occupation hurts Palestinians far more than European Union labelling of settlement products could. The Islamic State’s Sinai branch claimed responsibility for the attack.
The northern branch of the Islamic Movement has always been on Israel’s radar.
Zeki Aghbaria, a spokesman for the northern Islamic Movement, called the government’s characterisation of the organisation, as “political incitement”.
“Today I suddenly found I had become a criminal”, he told MEE. The UN has passed numerous resolutions condemning Israeli settlement activity, but the United States, Israel’s closest ally and main benefactor, has used its Security Council veto power to thwart the will of the global body.
In response, the Islamic Movement has funded so-called female Murabitat and male Murabitun groups to watch over Jewish visitors and ensure they do not pray.
The site has been at the heart of a wave of violence that has seen 14 Israelis killed in attacks by Palestinians over the past month and a half.
Israeli Arabs are descendants of Palestinians who remained after the creation of Israel in 1948 and account for more than 17% of the country’s population. “This is a war, as I said, repeatedly within Islam and unfortunately over 100,000 Muslims have been murdered by Daesh (Islamic State) alone over the past two years, and that doesn’t also count for the atrocities like-minded groups have also done in Africa and Asia”, King Abdullah said during a press conference in Kosovo today.
Regionally, meanwhile, the Islamic Movement is at its weakest.
The current round of violence erupted in mid-September over reports that Israel was trying to expand Jewish presence at the Jerusalem shrine and spread to the West Bank, Israeli cities and the Gaza border.
Zahalka said Netanyahu wanted a scapegoat and had found a convenient one in Salah. The Islamic Movement and a few Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to take control of the compound and change the status quo.
Haifa University sociologist Sammy Smooha told reporters his polls suggested that 42 per cent of Palestinian citizens identified with the Islamic Movement.
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Salah, who has been in and out of Israeli prisons, is suppose to start a 11-month jail term later this month pending an appeal for other incitement charges related to a 2007 sermon.
