Israeli media is reporting that Israeli Muslim Brotherhood leader Raed Salah has been released from prison after serving a nine-month sentence for incitement to violence and racism. According to the report:
January 17, 2017 Islamist cleric Raed Salah was released from prison early Tuesday morning after serving a nine-month sentence for incitement to violence and racism.
Salah, the head of the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, was convicted over an inflammatory sermon he delivered in 2007 in Jerusalem in which he praised martyrdom for the sake of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits atop the flashpoint Temple Mount holy site.
During the offending sermon, Salah expressed hope that ‘the streets of Jerusalem be purified with the blood of the innocent, who shed it in order to separate from their souls the soldiers of the Israel occupation, also in the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque.’ He further said that ‘our finest moment will be when we meet Allah as martyrs in al-Aqsa.’
Ahead of his release from Ramon Prison, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Monday issued a six-month travel ban on Salah, citing his potential ‘danger to the country.’
In late 2015, Israel banned the radical Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, accusing it of maintaining links to terror groups and of stoking a wave of violence that saw dozens of deaths in a spate of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks.
Thousands of supporters of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and its Northern Branch leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, demonstrated against Israel’s decision to outlaw the Northern Branch, on November 28, 2015, in Umm al-Fahm, Israel.
After the security cabinet declared the movement illegal, then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon signed an edict banning any activity connected to the group.
In December last year, police launched a new investigation into Salah over other incitement-related charges from before his most recent incarceration.
Read the rest here.
The GMBDW reported in November 2015 that an Israeli court had sentenced Raed Salah, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel, to 11 months jail for his role in inciting the current violence in Israel. GMBDW reporting on Salah has included:
- In October 2015, we reported on Raed Salah and the key role played by the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel in the wave of violence that gripped the country at that time.
- In August 2015, we reported that Israel’s Internal Security minister had asked the Minister of Defense to urgently ban two organizations operating on the Temple Mount and funded by the Islamic Movement. According to another Israeli media report at the time, Raed Salah spoke out against the move saying that Arabs who attack police and Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount represent “the ‘honor’ of the Muslim nation and the Arab world”
- We reported in January 2015 that the internal security service Shin Bet had shut down three Islamic charities for allegedly inciting violence against Jews and Israeli security forces. According an Israel Hayom report, the charities were created in October 2014 by the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel.
- In June 2014, we reported on claims by the Shin Bet that a senior Hamas official arrested in April had admitted that Hamas is exploiting the Islamic Movement in Israel to promote its interests in Jerusalem. We had reported a few days earlier that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to outlaw the Northern branch of the Islamic Movement..
Raed Salah is the leader of the so-called Northern branch of the Islamic Movement, essentially comprising the Israeli Muslim Brotherhood. He is noted for often alleging that Israel is conspiring to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (The Al-Aqsa Mosque is often the subject of various Global Muslim Brotherhood conspiracies theories involving alleged Israeli plots and plans to destroy the mosque.)
For profile on Raed Salah, go here.
For a profile of the Islamic Movement in Israel, go here.