Israel Outlaws Hamas-Aligned Islamic Movement

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement claiming the Northern Islamic Movement established a “salaried group of activists (called the Morabitat)” who mobilise “under the title ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger'”. “We should remember – we are not to blame for the terrorism directed against us, just as the French are not to blame for the terrorism directed against them”, he said.

Israeli police and agents of the Shin Bet domestic security service raided and shut down 17 offices and organizations affiliated with the Islamic Movement in Umm al-Fahem, Yaffa, Nazareth, Kufr Kanna, Tur’an, Beersheba, and Rahat, where they seized documents, computers and funds as well as froze the movement’s bank accounts.

Radical cleric Raed Salah, the group’s leader, was defiant, saying his party would fight the measure and continue its mission.

“All these measures done by the Israeli establishment are oppressive and condemned”, Salah said, adding that he and two other party leaders were summoned for police questioning.

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.

The government claimed the movement was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, had ties to Hamas and was committed to Israel’s destruction.

Salah said: “I will take every possible legitimate step, in Israel and internationally, to remove the measures taken against the movement”.

Adalah, a legal group for Palestinians in Israel, said the order from the defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, was based on emergency regulations from the British Mandate period.

Israel outlawed on Tuesday the Islamic Movement inside the 1948 occupied Palestinians territories.

Mohammad Barakeh, the head of an Arab Israeli umbrella organisation, accused Netanyahu of taking advantage of anti-Islamist sentiment in the Western world following the Paris attacks to crack down on the group.

In light of the announcement, the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee announced a general strike to take place on Thursday in protest of the decision, and called for mass demonstrations across Israel on Saturday.

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. Eighty-two Palestinians have been killed, including dozens who were targeted while carrying out attacks.

The current round of violence erupted in mid-September over rumors that Israel was trying to expand the Jewish presence at the hilltop compound that houses the mosque.

(JNS.org) The chairman of the Dutch Socialist Party, Jan Marijnissen, said he believes the perpetrators of the Paris terror attacks that killed 129 people were motivated in part by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The violence has been fueled 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.

In 2010, Israel announced plans to build 1,600 settler homes in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in mainly Arab east Jerusalem.

Haifa University sociologist and pollster Sammy Smooha said about 42 percent of Israeli Arabs say they support the Islamic Movement. Earlier this year, three organizations suspected of financing the Morabitoun were outlawed by Israel and afterwards declared the groups illegal.

Salah has had repeated run-ins with authorities and was previously imprisoned for funneling money to Hamas, which rules Gaza.

The Israeli security cabinet yesterday banned the Islamic Movement, considering it, its leaders, members and institutions outlaws.

Israeli forces have killed at least 78 Palestinians, 45 of whom Israel says were carrying out or were about to carry out attacks.