“The Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement is endangering the security of the State of Israel and collaborating, according to intelligence we have collected, with Palestinian terror organizations, including Hamas, in order to inflame the current situation and encourage violence”, said Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who signed the order banning the Islamist group.
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Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area. (The packing-houses of Mehadrin, the largest Israeli exporter of fruits and vegetables to the European Union, are located in this settlement.) More than 80% of Palestinian workers would leave their jobs in the settlements if they could find an alternative in the Palestinian labour market. The Islamic Movement and the charitable and religious institutions operating under its aegis provide important services to Arab citizens of Israel – and more importantly, they serve as an outlet for expressing Palestinian political and social grievances.
Both groups were barred from the site when clashes erupted between Muslim protesters and Israeli police in September.
Jews may visit but are prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount, a policy that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the government will not change.
“These guys…who committed the attacks likely to come from a group of indignant people in the French suburbs”, Marijnissen said in an interview with a Dutch radio station, NPO Radio 1.
Following the overnight decision by a group of senior ministers who deal with security issues, police shut down 17 organizations linked to the movement in Arab communities throughout northern Israel.
Radical cleric Raed Salah, the group’s leader, was defiant, saying his party would fight the measure and continue its mission.
“All these measures taken by the Israeli establishment are unjust and unacceptable”, Salah said in a statement.
Separately, Salah is set to start an 11-month jail term later this month in connection with incitement charges from a 2007 sermon.
There is a good chance that one day we’re going to miss the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, which may have talked about attacks on the State of Israel but never actually did much of anything about it.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan sought to link the decision to the attacks in Paris, saying Israel should lead the “struggle against radical Islam, whose emissaries we saw massacring innocent people in Paris”. The southern branch has typically been more moderate, with a few of its members serving in the Knesset.
The ban sparked outrage among Arab leaders and lawmakers who condemned the move.
Salah made his statements following an urgent meeting of Israeli Arab Monitoring Committee which was held in Nazareth.
“They have filled the vacuum of the government services in the Arab communities”, said Wadea Awawdeh, an Arab commentator in northern Israel.
At least 78 Palestinians, 47 of them assailants according to police, have been killed by security forces at scenes of the assaults and many others in protests in the occupied West Bank and near the Gaza border.
Palestinian youths threw stones and firebombs while barricading themselves inside the mosque and Israeli police responded with stun grenades and tear gas.
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.
Of note, 78 percent of Palestinians support “attempts to stab or run over Israelis” in the West Bank and Jerusalem, 61 percent thought it was morally right to name Palestinian streets after suicide bombers, more than 80 percent disagreed with the notion of sharing land with Jews because “this is Palestinian land and Jews have no rights to it” and 94 percent have a “very unfavorable” opinion of Jews.
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.
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For years, the northern branch of the Islamic Movement has led a mendacious campaign of incitement under the heading “Al Aqsa is in danger” that falsely accuses Israel of intending to harm the Al Aqsa Mosque and violate the status-quo.
