Israel, Islamic Movement declared ‘illegal’

Israel accuses the group, the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, of inciting Arab Israelis over the last two months.

Yet Israel’s own Shin Bet security service is anxious that the ban could backfire, a political source told Reuters.

On Tuesday, the Israeli government outlawed the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and declared membership or association with the organization is a criminal offense.

Raed Salah, the head of the organisation, said he had been summoned along with two other officials to a police station in the northern city of Haifa, while also denouncing the ban.

Netanyahu has accused the northern section of inciting the violence with its “Al Aqsa is in danger” rallying cry.

Declaring the northern Islamic Movement an “illegal organisation”, Netanyahu said it “denies [Israel’s] right to exist and calls for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in its place”.

“To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism”, Francis said in a private audience Wednesday with delegates from the World Jewish Congress (WJC), to the delegation headed by WJC President Ronald S. Lauder. The umbrella organization was set to hold an emergency meeting over the ban.

The Islamic Movement was founded in the early 1970s, with the goal of “establishing an Arab Islamic state in Palestine”, inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, according to a 2000 report by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) think-tank.

“The sense is that this could be a slippery slope”, said Ofer Zalzberg, senior analyst with the Middle East programme at the International Crisis Group think tank.

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. 14 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian strikes, primarily stabbings, and at least 83 Palestinians are killed by Israeli fire, including 51 were involved in assaults.

Many of the Palestinians killed have been alleged attackers, while others have been shot dead in clashes with Israeli security forces. “A significant portion of recent terrorist attacks have been committed against the background of this incitement and propaganda”, said the statement, referring to violence that has killed 88 Palestinians and 13 Israelis since October.

Details of the agreement involving the long-awaited service were not immediately clear, but it comes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged steps to ease tensions in the occupied West Bank, gripped by weeks of violence.

Israeli Police issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon regarding the outlawing of the radical Muslim group, writing, “in the framework of the activities against the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement materials, computers, media, documents and monies were seized, and bank accounts were frozen”. He is now pursuing an appeal. Tibi said that he saw the move as “aimed against all of the Arab public and against the right and even obligation to act for our public, especially on the topic of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts by right-wing elements to change the status quo”.

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.