Israel Arabs complain of discrimination, disenfranchisement and harassment.
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The Jerusalem Postreports the homes will be built in the contested Ramat Shlomo and Ramot settlements, which are illegal under worldwide law but considered neighborhoods of Jerusalem by Israel.
“The northern branch of the Islamic Movement has for years lead a deceitful campaign of incitement under the title ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger, ‘ falsely accusing Israel of intending to harm the mosque and deviate from the status quo”, read documents disturbed by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Salah is regarded as an outspoken critic of Israel and has organized protests since the late 1990s against Israeli extremists entering the Noble Sanctuary, Jerusalem’s religious complex that encloses the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa mosque and the site of two destroyed biblical temples.
The South African arrest warrants come as a judge issued similar warrants in Spain for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Tuesday, also over the flotilla incident.
“We don’t distinguish between Jewish terrorism and Arab terrorism, but the truth needs to be told: there is Jewish terrorism but in terms of size and numbers it is not at the same extent”, he said.
A few 17 related organisations were also served with orders shutting them down.
“All these measures taken by Israel are unjust and unacceptable”, the movement’s leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, wrote in a Facebook post.
“All these measures done by the Israeli establishment are oppressive and condemned”, Salah said, adding that he and two other party leaders were summoned to police questioning.
“Any person who belongs to this organization or who provides services to it or who acts within its framework is henceforth committing a criminal offense punishable by a prison sentence”, the Israeli government said in a statement. “The streets of Jerusalem will be purified by the blood of the innocents whose souls were taken by the Israeli occupation soldiers”, he is quoted as saying. Today, a few 550,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, nearly 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tsipi Hotovely sparked controversy recently when she said she dreamed that one day an Israeli flag would fly over the Temple Mount site. Sympathy for Palestinian brethren living under Israeli occupation has traditionally been strong, and Israeli Arabs dislike the Jewish-nationalist policies championed by Netanyahu.
The public security minister, Gilad Erdan, went further, saying: “The Islamic Movement, Hamas, ISIS [Islamic State], and the other terror organizations have a common ideological platform that leads to terror attacks in the world and the wave of terror attacks in Israel”. Salah’s calls to protect Al-Aqsa resonate with large segments of the public, even those who are not religious, said Shaul Bartal, an expert on Palestinian affairs at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. Israeli security analysts say that fears about Al Aqsa have motivated, in part, the recent spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
The Islamic Movement has also gained popularity by running a network of charities, kindergartens, health clinics and social services – a model established elsewhere by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Whereas Israeli authorities have grudgingly shrugged off the group’s rhetoric in the past, they are now less forgiving of anything that might encourage the kind of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks seen in recent weeks.
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(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel received a boost of support on Tuesday as it continued to voice its objection to the European Union’s decision to label Israeli products made in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. “The northern branch of the Islamic Movement is a separatist, racist group that does not recognize the institutions of the State of Israel, denies its right to exist, and calls for replacing it with an Islamic Caliphate in its place”.
