The Israelis ought to go after Muslim clerics such as Sheikh Muhammad Sallah “Abu Rajab” and Abu Hamza ‘Ashur, who have called openly, while preaching in mosques, for the murder of Israeli civilians.
“Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah’s appeal rejected, to serve 11 month sentence,” by Ariel Ben Solomon, Jerusalem Post, October 27, 2015:
Raed Salah, the leader of the extremist Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, will serve the 11-month sentence he received in March for incitement in a 2007 speech after the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday rejected his appeal.
Salah is scheduled to begin serving his sentence November 15.“ We will continue to defend al-Aksa until we win,” he said after the decision, Walla reported.
Dozens of supporters had accompanied Salah to the court.
The decision comes at a sensitive time during which daily terrorist attacks are being perpetrated by Palestinians against Israelis, and could set off even more protests and violence from within the Israeli Arab sector, which sees Salah as one of its leaders….
Muhammad Barakei, Arab Higher Monitoring Committee head and former Hadash chairman, argued that it was a political decision, saying it was against the entire Arab public.
That is the same strategy Islamic supremacists pursue in the West. They claim that counter-terror activities target Muslims as a whole, and hence must be curtailed.
During his previous court appearance two weeks ago, Salah had shouted out: “In spirit and blood we will defend al-Aksa. Whoever thinks that they can scare us by putting us in prison is mistaken.”
At that time, Tibi told the Post that the attempt to jail Salah was an effort “to exploit the tension and fervor in the street to quickly put Salah in jail as part of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s effort to ban the Islamic Movement.”
Prof. Lawrence Rubin, a Middle East expert from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told the Post Tuesday: “We shouldn’t expect Sheikh Raed’s influence to disappear just because he’s in prison.”
Following the earlier appearance Rubin had said, “Salah still has to maintain a delicate balance because the Israeli authorities could shut down many of his financial operations he uses to fund his social welfare programs, mosque activities and so on.”
The presence of Arab MKs and other Arab leaders at the earlier hearing enhanced Salah’s claim for leadership of Arab citizens of Israel, Rubin, who wrote an in depth study of the Islamic Movement last year for the Brookings Institution, had said.
Netanyahu, government officials, and others in the media have been pointing their fingers at the Islamic Movement in Israel’s northern branch, connecting it to the recent wave of violence.
Earlier this month, a representative of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) told the cabinet the Islamic Movement and Hamas were chiefly responsible for the incitement that has led to the upsurge in terrorism, and that both groups reject Israel’s existence….