You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Raed Salah’ tag.
Chomsky in a tete-a-tete with Hezbollah's Nasrallah
The Guardian, not content with six pieces (news items and commentaries) already published defending the anti-Semitic radical preacher, Raed Salah, and demonizing his opponents, decided to publish two additional apologias (Letters: Double standards over Salah arrest, July 4) from ferocious critics of Israel – Ghada Karmi and Noam Chomsky.
Evidently, the Guardian felt that Karmi, an outspoken proponent for the end of the Jewish state, and Chomsky, who believes the U.S. is “the world’s greatest terrorist state“, has defended the Khmer Rouge, expressed support for Hezbollah, and has likened Zionism to Nazism, could provide unique, and thoughtful, insights into the UK’s detention of Salah.
While Chomsky’s letter characterized Salah – who’s advanced anti-Semitic conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 – as an important voice for “rights” and “justice”, Karni chastised the UK for failing to arrest Israeli leaders, who she characterizes as “war criminals”, and advances the blatantly false claim that “Raed has committed no crime in Britain or elsewhere.”
Karmi, evidently writing without the services of an internet search engine, neglected to inform her readers that Salah was imprisoned in Israel after acknowledging funding Hamas, served time for assaulting a police officer, and has been banned from Jerusalem for repeatedly engaging in incitement to violence.
More broadly, in eight pieces and over 3000 words in the course of a week, the Guardian has displayed a disgraceful, if characteristic, obsession with the “cause” of an extremist preacher with a proven record of anti-Semitism, support for designated terrorist organizations, and incitement to violence.
Of course, the ubiquity of such profound moral inversions at the Guardian – regarding radical Islam, Israel and anti-Semitism – doesn’t render such ideological pathos any less outrageous or shameful.
Related articles
- On anti-Semites and their enablers: Guardian editorial defends radical anti-Semitic preacher, Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- On the “Guardian Hamas support network” (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s bias in covering Sheikh Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- Haneen Zoabi defends anti-Semitic Islamist preacher: Accuses UK Zionist lobby of controlling British politics (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Raed Salah’s not so liberal views on women, gays, and Jihad (cifwatch.com)
- At the Guardian, it’s Sheikh Raed Salah – O – Mania! (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian and “powerful” Jews (cifwatch.com)
Riazatt Butt is CiF’s Religious Affairs correspondent, and her column, “Divine Dispatches”, in the Belief Section of CiF, represents a round-up of sorts on religious news in the UK and around the world. Her reports are sometimes cheeky and irreverent but, more often than not, sober and descriptive.
Her June 29th report focused on a group for those who have been alienated but wish to remain within the Anglican family, the LGBT issue within the Church of England, and the search for the next Chief Rabbi of the UK.
Regarding the latter issue, which touched on the Reform-Orthodox divide within the UK Jewish community, and other issues effecting the decision, Butt noted the “changing demographic of Britain’s small but powerful Jewish communities” – a narrative about Jewish influence, it should be noted, that Butt has explored on at least one other occasion.
Of course, anyone with a serious grasp of the history of anti-Semitism would immediately recognize this familiar trope about Jewry. No matter how small the Jewish community relative to the total population in the countries they live, their “power” and influence is always magnified – typically in the context of suggestions as to their injurious effects.
Even in the U.S., where Jews enjoy freedoms and prosperity unparalleled in Diaspora history, the term “Israel lobby” (or “Jewish Lobby”) has become shorthand, largely within progressive political circles - a pejorative suggesting that the organized Jewish community has a harmful influence on U.S. foreign policy.
In a previous post we commented on Haneen Zoabi’s CiF essay decrying the detention, by British Authorities, of radical Islamist preacher Raed Salah, where she accused the UK “Zionist” community of controlling British politics.
As noted in the post, the Jewish community in the UK (about 300,000) represents a minuscule percentage (less than 1/2 of 1%) of the overall British population.
Further, as anyone who reads this blog would surely know, this “powerful” Jewish community is somehow unable to control the Guardian’s habitual demonization of the Jewish state, nor other manifestations of obsessive Israel hatred (and anti-Semitism) in the media, as well as by Islamists, pro-Palestinian “activists”, and NGOs.
Globally, Jews make up approximately 2/10 of 1% of the world’s population.
Muslims make up 23%. Christians represent 30%.
Sixty-six years after the Holocaust, it is horribly dispiriting that the charge that Jewry is too (or, at least, disproportionately) powerful has become practically a banality.
Related articles
- The Guardian: Fuelling Denials of Antisemitism (cifwatch.com)
- Haneen Zoabi defends anti-Semitic Islamist preacher: Accuses UK Zionist lobby of controlling British politics (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, Haneen Zoabi and Raed Salah – a Case Study of the Red-Green Alliance (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian: Platform of choice for Iranian anti-Israel propagandists (cifwatch.com)
- Professor Robert Wistrich: “The Guardian is second to none when it comes to the delegitimization of Israel” (cifwatch.com)
- “As a Jew” explained (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Notorious anti-Semite, Gilad Atzmon, a featured speaker at flotilla fundraiser (cifwatch.com)
- On why many liberals continue to ignore explicit anti-Semitism in the Palestinian media (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian grants licence to voice expressing alarm over the injurious effects of organized Jewish community in U.S. (cifwatch.com)
- Image accompanying Guardian ‘letters to the editor’ post condemning Israel evokes classic canard (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
Artist's abstract rendering of Guardian's Israel coverage over the last few days
So, you’re a Guardian reader and you wan’t to know what’s going on in Israel. Hmmm….let’s go to their Israel page and find out.
Surely there’s something of interest in the Holy Land: Jerusalem, politics, culture, the religious-secular divide, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Israel’s bilateral relations? Nope. It’s Sheikh Raed Salah, everyday, all the time!
I guess the only good news relating to the Guardian’s obsession with the tragically misunderstood extremist preacher is that they haven’t had time to demonize Israel over their efforts to prevent the pro-Hamas flotillas from breaking their blockade.
Related articles
- On anti-Semites and their enablers: Guardian editorial defends radical anti-Semitic preacher, Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s bias in covering Sheikh Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, Haneen Zoabi and Raed Salah – a Case Study of the Red-Green Alliance (cifwatch.com)
- Haneen Zoabi defends anti-Semitic Islamist preacher: Accuses UK Zionist lobby of controlling British politics (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Raed Salah’s not so liberal views on women, gays, and Jihad (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
On June 29th 2011, hours after Sheikh Raed Salah had been arrested in London, The Guardian published an article in his defence on its ‘Comment is Free’ website by Haneen Zoabi.
There are three elements to this story and despite the fact that they may appear to come from different worlds, they in fact have more in common than may first meet the eye. Their binding factor is one: Israel.
Haneen Zoabi is an Arab-Israeli (from Nazareth) member of Israel’s parliament on behalf of ‘Balad‘ – an acronym for ‘Brit Leumit Democratit’ or National Democratic Alliance. It is a secular far-Left Arab party formed in 1995 by Azmi Bishara and others as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to bring about a two-state solution. Its members reject the concept of a Jewish State – and therefore Jewish self-determination – and seek to establish a bi-national secular one in its place to which Palestinian refugees would be given ‘the right of return’. Concurrently, it supports the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territories captured by Israel from Egypt and Jordan during the Six Day War, including part of Jerusalem.
Raed Salah is also an Arab-Israeli – head of the radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel (or, as they prefer to be known, the ‘Islamic Movement in ’48 Palestine’) – and a resident and former mayor of the city of Um El Fahm. The movement’s origins can be traced back to the days of the Arab revolt in Mandate Palestine in 1936, but it gathered momentum as a result of the co-operation between Haj Amin al Husseini and its parent organisation (also that of Hamas), the Muslim Brotherhood. The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 was accepted by the movement’s more moderate southern branch –a move which created a permanent rift between it and the northern branch, which rejected the agreements. The underlying principles of the northern branch are similar to those of Hamas: the rejection of Israel’s right to exist, the establishment of an Islamic state (as part of the Caliphate) in its place and the implementation of Sharia law. It also supports the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees.
In other words, despite the fact that, according to Salah’s ideology, Haneen Zoabi would no longer have the right to be a secular, uncovered, educated female Arab politician, the ‘red’ of the far Left finds common ground with the ‘green’ of the Islamist movement on one subject: the desire to eliminate the Jewish State from the map.
Salah and Zoabi have another thing in common: both were aboard the ‘Mavi Marmara’ last May when Muslim Brotherhood-linked IHH activists viciously attacked and wounded Israeli soldiers trying to prevent the ship from breaching the naval blockade on Gaza and nine of them were killed as a result. Photographs taken aboard the ship at the time yet only recently published apparently show Zoabi in the vicinity of Turkish activists armed with guns.
Here is Salah in action after the flotilla:
And where is the Guardian in all this? Well, it frequently gives a platform to anti-Zionists and in particular those of the far-Left variety, in accordance with the ideologies and activities of some of its own staff such as Seumas Milne. It also frequently acts as a voluntary platform for members of Hamas and sympathisers of that Islamist movement. It is, in other words, the place where red and green meet in order to promote their anti-Israel message and at no time was that more obvious than during the aftermath of the 2010 flotilla which was dutifully promoted by the Guardian according to red/green dictates.
Like Salah and Zoabi, the Guardian too appears to reject the option of negotiation as the preferred manner of solving the Arab-Israeli conflict; its active participation in the ‘Palestine Papers’ affair which effectively put the lid upon the Palestinian Authority’s ability to negotiate anything indicated that Farringdon Road is definitely in the Hamas camp.
So let us now examine Zoabi’s arguments in favour of Salah, as published by the Guardian. Immediately she tries to attribute the blame for Salah’s arrest to Israel and its supporters, whilst at the same time playing the ‘Islamophobia’ card. According to British statements on the subject, Salah was arrested under Section 3 of the Immigration Act of 1971 which, to the best of my knowledge,’ Israel and its supporters’ had no part in drafting. Obviously, Zoabi cannot credit the UK authorities with possessing minds of their own.
She refuses to recognise the unpleasant fact that, like many other countries, both Britain and Israel have seen a worrying rise in the popularity of various strains of the Islamist movement in recent years and that measures to limit incitement against non-Muslims, Muslim apostates, women, homosexuals and members of other ethnic groups are part and parcel of a democratic country’s responsibility towards its citizens of all stripes. Raed Salah is not the first (and will probably not be the last) Islamist (or other) hate preacher to be denied entry to or deported from the United Kingdom and that fact has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘Islamophobia’ or clandestine behind the scenes operations by a mythical ‘Zionist lobby’.
Is it surprising that the Guardian should permit Zoabi to promote such ridiculous claims on its virtual pages? Not in the least: it has frequently allowed Islamists and their supporters to sound warning bells of ‘Islamophobia’ (as opposed to the real phenomenon of anti-Muslim bigotry) on its pages as part and parcel of the campaign by British Islamists to silence debate. As for the all-powerful ‘Zionist lobby’; this, of course, is one of the favourite themes on CiF and is promoted by former Foreign Office types, Arabists and Islamists alike.
Zoabi’s falsehoods continue with the statement that:
“Because I took part in the first freedom flotilla to break the illegal and inhuman siege of Gaza, the Israeli establishment has waged a propaganda campaign against me, accusing me of “terrorism”, and demanding the withdrawal of my parliamentary immunity and citizenship. This will be difficult to implement, but it threatens my political legitimacy and defines me as a “risk”.”
Of course she conveniently forgets to mention that as a Knesset member she swore that “I pledge myself to bear allegiance to the State of Israel and faithfully to discharge my mandate in the Knesset.” Sadly for Haneen Zoabi, the right to collaborate with enemies of her country and to attempt to facilitate the increased influx of weapons from the Iranian regime she so admires into Gaza with the sole purpose of their being used to kill, injure and terrorize the civilians who pay her generous salary is not included in her job description. She also neglects to mention that the sanctions enacted against her following her flotilla escapade were at most symbolic; as she herself said in an interview with ‘electronic Intifada’ “ The three parliamentary sanctions are nothing — I mean nothing — because I can still use my civic passport”.
Zoabi then goes on to dismiss criticisms of Salah as ‘fabricated’:
“Unable to produce any legal evidence, the Israeli establishment and its supporters in Britain accuse him of antisemitism. Salah has rebutted the fabricated allegations behind these claims and instructed his lawyers to begin legal action against those repeating them.”
“It appears that the charge of antisemitism is being used as a way of suppressing criticism of Israeli policies. Since when has the struggle for equality become a form of racism? Since when have states that boast of their democratic credentials acquired the right to arrest people for their political views?”
A quick tour around Salah’s (Zoabi endorsed) ‘struggle for equality’ and ‘political views’ shows him to be a supporter of the notion that Jews were pre-warned about the 9/11 terror attacks, a condemner of America’s action against the “martyr” Osama Bin Laden and a radical homophobe. That alone would probably be enough to drastically reduce his Brownie points with the British Home Secretary but has nothing to do with Israel.
On his home turf, Salah is best known (apart from funding Hamas and having spent five months in prison for assaulting a policeman) for being a very successful inciter of violent riots. His favourite tactic is to whip up fervour by telling his listeners that Israel is attempting to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque.
“On Friday the leader of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch told followers that should Muslims have to choose between renouncing the al-Aqsa Mosque and becoming martyrs they will choose the latter.
“Should the State of Israel make us choose…we will clearly choose to be martyrs,” said Sheikh Raed Salah in the annual al-Aqsa convention in Umm al-Fahm. “We are a nation that does not give up, we will die and win; the al-Aqsa Mosque is not a matter that can be given up on, and we shall win, God willing.”
Thousands of Muslims heeded Salah’s call and made their way to Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday. Police initially restricted access to the compound – both to tourists and visitors – as a precautionary measure, after learning that residents of east Jerusalem were urged to “come to protect the Mount.” Large police forces were deployed in the Old City as well.”
At a lecture at Haifa University in 2009 he said:
“We love life, our families, our homes and our children, but if they suggest that we give up our principles and holy sites, we would rather die and we will welcome death.”
Salah claimed that the government continued constantly to dig tunnels under the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque, and that Netanyahu was planning to complete during his current term what he did not complete during his first one – “to dig additional tunnels under al-Aqsa and rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount.”
The Muslim students responded by chanting, “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).”
It is, of course, the prerogative of the British Home Secretary to decide that it is not in the public interest to allow such an obvious master in the incitement of violence to have free access to the already problematic sections of radicalised youth in her society.
No amount of crying wolf by Haneen Zoabi can transform that into ‘Islamophobia’, just as Israeli opposition to the actions of those who seek to deny Jews the right to self-determination should not be categorised as racism. The Israeli public and government have nothing against Salah and Zoabi because they are Arabs or Muslims; any objections are to their (often violence-related) actions taken as part of their red/green campaign to destroy the Jewish State.
Salah, Zoabi and the Guardian obviously cannot understand the difference. That could well be because none of them have pristine reputations themselves when it comes to anti-racism, and their repeated references to a ‘pro-Israel (ie Jewish/Zionist) lobby’ influencing policy in foreign countries, both in this article and others, are just the tip of that particular iceberg.
Of course the rich irony of it is that of all the countries in the world, Israel and the United Kingdom are members of quite a small but select club of those which would allow people such as Zoabi and Salah such a free rein to disseminate their lies and propaganda, and that especially excludes the types of country which members of the red/green alliance revere and would emulate if their wishes concerning the end of the Jewish State ever came true.
Related articles
- Conal Urquhart quotes Ben White as a source in Guardian’s second whitewash of anti-Semitic preacher (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s bias in covering Sheikh Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian and Independent coverage of second flotilla omits key facts (cifwatch.com)
- Azzam Tamimi’s big ‘Arab Spring’ lie. (cifwatch.com)
- The tangled web they weave – the eminence noir behind the “Freedom Flotilla 2″ (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ – Update 4 – ‘Brothers’ in Arms (cifwatch.com)
H/T to Just Journalism for finding a 2003 Ha’aretz interview with Raed Salah, the radical Islamist preacher who has become a cause celeb among the Guardian”intelligentsia” since he was detained on Tuesday by British authorities due to their concerns he would promote an extremist agenda.
Click image to see video at MEMRI
The questions were posed by Ha’aretz correspondent, Jalal Bana.
JB: Was what happened in the United States on September 11 an act of terrorism or of jihad?
Salah: ”Your question suggests that you want to reach an answer before we know who was behind that action. Does the United States know who perpetrated the attack? Certainly not. And it is not I who say this, but the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who declared that the U.S. does not yet have proof about whom perpetrated the attack.”
(Also, see this even more explicit promotion, by Salah, of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories relating to 9/11)
JB: Do 70 virgins await shahids – martyrs – in paradise?
Salah: ”On this matter, we have proof. It is written in the Koran and in the Suna [the traditions about the life of Mohammed]. This matter is clear. The shahid receives from Allah six special things, including 70 virgins, no torment in the grave, and the choice of 70 members of his family and his confidants to enter paradise with him.”
JB: What is your opinion of the legislation now being discussed in the Knesset, which would grant Muslim women rights similar to those of Jewish women in matters of personal status?
Salah: ”That bill is tantamount to a war on Islam. It is an attempt to dictate different, foreign values that are neither Muslim nor Palestinian values.”
JB: But why shouldn’t Islamic women have the right to choose whether they want their case to be heard in a civil court or a sharia court?
Salah: “There is a difference between freedom, and damage and destruction under the slogan of freedom. We are in favor of freedom for women, which preserves their religious and national identity. We are against fake slogans that are called freedom. The bill would give civil courts the possibility of intervening in every Islamic matter. What we fear is that in the future there will also be intervention [by the Knesset] in the question of the Waqf [Muslim religious trust] lands. That will be a blow to Islam and no one can know what its consequences are liable to be.”
JB: What is your opinion of homosexuality?
Salah: “It is a crime. A great crime. Such phenomena signal the start of the collapse of every society. Those who believe in Allah know that behavior of that kind brings his wrath and is liable to cause the worst things to happen. There is no solution for this, unless the individual’s faith is strengthened.”
Related articles
- The Guardian’s bias in covering Sheikh Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- Haneen Zoabi defends anti-Semitic Islamist preacher: Accuses UK Zionist lobby of controlling British politics (cifwatch.com)
- Conal Urquhart quotes Ben White as a source in Guardian’s second whitewash of anti-Semitic preacher (cifwatch.com)
- The tangled web they weave – the eminence noir behind the “Freedom Flotilla 2″ (cifwatch.com)
The Guardian has now devoted four columns (here, here, here, and here) and one CiF commentary, encompassing over 2100 words, about Britain’s arrest of the Islamist preacher, Sheikh Raed Salah, all of which share a couple common denominators: They’re all viscerally sympathetic to Salah; they all but ignore his record of incitement and anti-Semitism, which includes a sermon where he advanced the Medieval blood libel, as well as his ties to Hamas; and they frame Salah’s opponents in the pejorative as either “right-wing Israelis” or as part of the “Zionist lobby”.
This latter charge is leveled explicitly by Haneen Zoabi, the Israeli Arab MK who was a participant on board last year’s pro-Hamas flotilla, in her CiF column, An Israeli trap for Britain, June 29.
Zoabi casually dismisses charges of anti-Semitism against Salah, accuses pro-Israel groups of complicity with “Islamophobia” in their criticism of the preacher, implicitly levels the Zionism is racism canard against Israel, and characterizes Salah’s arrest as evidence of racism by Zionists in the UK.
She concludes her apologia for the Hamas supporting hate preacher by an urgent plea to citizens of the UK not to allow “the pro-Israel lobby” to determine their politics.
For those of us schooled in the long and dark history of this charge – of the injurious effects of organized Jewry on the body politic of the nations where they reside – as well as the Guardian’s complicity in advancing this odious narrative of Jewish power, the continuing staying power of such tropes come as no surprise.
But, the predictability of Zoabi’s effort to blame the UK’s tiny Jewish population (less than 1/2 of 1% of Britain’s total population) on a decision by non-Jewish British government authorities doesn’t make it any less malicious, dangerous, or racist.
Related articles
- The Guardian’s bias in covering Sheikh Raed Salah (cifwatch.com)
- Conal Urquhart quotes Ben White as a source in Guardian’s second whitewash of anti-Semitic preacher (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Notorious anti-Semite, Gilad Atzmon, a featured speaker at flotilla fundraiser (cifwatch.com)
- On why many liberals continue to ignore explicit anti-Semitism in the Palestinian media (cifwatch.com)
Back in Jerusalem after her Christmas holidays, Harriet Sherwood continues to be in fine form when it comes to being economical with both truth and facts. In her January 7th article she focuses upon the accidental killing of a Palestinian man during an operation to capture his nephew and four other Hamas terrorists.
“An IDF statement said it happened during an operation to arrest five Hamas militants who were released from a Palestinian prison yesterday. “A Palestinian man who was present in one of the terrorists’ homes was killed,” the statement said. “The IDF regrets the outcome of the incident.” Its investigation would present its conclusions “as early as next week”.”
Of course, in accordance with Guardian protocols, Sherwood cannot bring herself to use the word “terrorists”, so we get the euphemistic term “militants” instead – a word more evocative of striking miners than people who murder civilians in cold blood.
Predictably, Sherwood makes no reference to the fact that Wael Bitar – the dead man’s nephew – was in the Palestinian prison mentioned (in her passage cited above) due to his alleged role in the murders of Yitzhak and Talya Imes,Kochava Even-Chaim and Avishai Shindler on August 31st 2010, or the connection of some of the captured men to the Dimona suicide bombingin 2008.
Neither does she elaborate on the circumstances of the release of these five Hamas terrorists; no mention of the fact that it came not because of the outcome of a trial or because they had completed a prison sentence, but as a result of pressure applied on Mahmoud Abbas by various parties, including the emir of Qatar and the leader of the Islamic Movement in Um el Fahm –Raed Salah.
A conscientious journalist might have explained to readers that this is just the latest incident under Mahmoud Abbas’ ‘revolving door’ policy of arresting terrorists involved in attacks on Israeli civilians and then releasing them when the outcry has died down. In fact, the Palestinian Authority admits that it only incarcerates Hamas terrorists in order to keep them safe from arrest by Israel.
“Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Hamas men were kept in a PA prison so that they wouldn’t be arrested by the IDF.”
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Sheikh Raed Salah: The Indictments
July 8, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Community Security Trust, Guardian, Islamic Movement in Israel, Raed Salah, Temple Mount | by Guest/Cross Post | 14 comments
This is cross posted from the blog of the CST
Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, is currently in prison in the UK awaiting an appeal hearing against his deportation from the UK.
His case has attracted a great deal of media and political attention, mainly because he entered the UK despite being subject to an exclusion order, and was then arrested in London; the exact circumstances of which are now the subject of a Home Office investigation. In considering the circumstances of Salah’s appeal, the Court will look at the grounds of the original decision to exclude Salah, reports of which have led to libel complaints against the Daily Telegraph and the Jewish Chronicle.
Salah and his supporters have claimed, variously, that the antisemitic comments he is alleged to have made have been fabricated; that even if he did make those comments, he has never been charged with antisemitism in Israel; or that he was tried but acquitted of those charges. These defences are not all consistent, and in fact his main UK supporter, Middle East Monitor, amended one of its press releases which had initially claimed that Salah had never been charged with antisemitism, to say instead that he had been charged but “was never convicted due to lack of evidence”.
It now appears that Salah does face a charge of inciting antisemitism in Israel, and that this charge relates directly to the ‘blood libel’ speech he is alleged to have given in Jerusalem in 2007. CST has obtained a copy of two outstanding indictments against Salah, both issued by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court and signed by the Jerusalem District Attorney. Both are dated 23rd June 2011, although we believe that the first indictment – the ‘blood libel’ – was first issued in January 2008.
Salah had previously been tried and acquitted in 2010 on charges of assaulting a police officer and taking part in an illegal gathering, both of which related to the same 2007 Jerusalem rally. These charges do not appear in the indictment CST has obtained, which appears to cover different allegations. After his 2010 acquittal, Salah was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying that “all of the four remaining cases against me should be closed.” The indictments described below may explain what he was referring to in that quote.
The full text of both indictments, in Hebrew, can be downloaded here. We have provided translated excerpts, below. It should be noted that the speech in the first indictment is a translation of Hebrew which is itself a translation from Arabic, which may explain why the wording is confusing in some parts.
Indictment One – inciting racism and inciting violence
General Section:
1. The defendant is the leader of the northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
2. During the month of February 2007, [construction] work was undertaken in the Mughrabi [Mugrabi] Gate at the entrance to the Temple Mount. This sparked protest and riots by the Arab public.
3. On 15 February 2007, the Jerusalem court forbade the defendant from being in vicinity of the Old City of Jerusalem or within a distance of 150 metres from it for a period of 60 days (B”S 2181/7).
A. The Facts:
4. On Friday 16/2/07, around 10:00 hours, the defendant arrived in Jerusalem joined by hundreds of supporters from the north of Israel. Following the Police order, which limited worshippers’ entrance to the Temple Mount, and following the order noted in Section 3 above, the defendant and his supporters congregated in Ben Hadeeya Street in the Wadi Joz neighbourhood of Jerusalem, to listen to a speech by the defendant and for Friday prayer.
5. The defendant used a makeshift stage and a sound system to deliver his speech to around a thousand people and numerous media representatives who were present.
6. During the speech, the defendant stated, inter alia, the following:
7. The speech was interrupted from time to time by the crowd with chanting: “G-d is great” and “With spirit and blood we redeem you Aqsa”.
8. As the speech and prayer concluded, the crowd started rioting and throwing stones towards the police forces that were in the vicinity. During the rioting, three Border Police officers were injured.
9. Through the defendant’s actions, which are described above, he advertised a call for acts of violence and encouragement for violent acts, which, according to the content and the circumstances in which it [the speech] was given, there is a realistic possibility of it leading to an actual act of violence, and he advertised them with the intention of inciting racism.
B. The legislative provisions according to which the defendant is accused:
1. Inciting to violence – Criminal offence Section (A)2D144 of the penal code 1977 (hereinafter: the law).
2. Inciting racism – Criminal offence Section (A)B144 of the law.
Indictment Two – Obstructing a Police Officer in the line of duty
A. The Facts:
1. On 17/4/11, around 15:30 hours, the defendant and his wife arrived from Jordan and requested to enter Israel via the Allenby Border Terminal (hereafter:the terminal).
2. Entry procedures to Israel via the terminal include, inter alia, luggage and body searches of the travellers. Because of the defendant’s public status, the defendant and his wife were directed to a separate, inner wing of the terminal for the search.
3. The defendant fully cooperated in the process of searching his suitcases and the body search performed on him. At a certain point, a female police officer asked the defendant’s wife to accompany her behind a curtain in order to conduct a body search on her.
4. At this moment, the defendant began to shout that he refuses to allow a search of his wife on grounds that it insults his and his wife’s honour. The defendant stood, with his wife standing behind him, and prevented the female officer from approaching his wife. The commander of the terminal, who was present, explained to the defendant that this is a legal procedure and informed the defendant that he is violating the order and obstructing the police, and asked the defendant to calm down and exit the examination room (hereafter:the room).
5. The defendant continued to shout and to oppose the search, and even told his wife to exit the room and refuse the search, even though it was clarified to him that the search would be done in an enclosed space and by a woman. Following his behaviour, two officers were invited to the area, who forcibly removed the defendant from the room, and instructed him to wait outside the room, in the wing’s corridor.
6. The officers clarified to the defendant that he was obstructing their work, and requested of the defendant to wait seated on the bench in the wing’s corridor, adjacent to the entry door to the examination room (hereafter: the door). Following a loud argument, the defendant sat on the bench, while two officers were standing nearby, with their backs to the closed-door.
7. The defendant sat on the bench for about two minutes, and then rose abruptly and tried to forcibly enter the room, while pushing the officers with his hands, and kicking the room’s door in order to open it. The officers caught the defendant, and removed him a distance from the door, and instructed him to sit on the bench.
8. The defendant sat on the bench, but got up after a short while, stood in front of the officers blocking his way and pushed the officers towards the door with his body. The officers forcibly pushed the defendant, and sat him down on the bench.
9. The defendant’s kick on the room’s door also hit one of the officer’s hip, causing a slight injury.
10. In the actions stated above, the defendant committed an act meant to intentionally obstruct the officer while performing his legal duty and thereby frustrate his work.
B. The legislative provisions according to which the defendant is accused:
Obstructing a police officer in the line of duty – Offence according to Section 275 of the law
There are a few points that it is important to stress. The first is that Salah denies all of the allegations, and also denies that he is antisemitic.
The second is that while Salah does appear to have been charged in Israel with inciting antisemitism (contrary to his initial claim), he has not yet been tried on those charges (contrary to his subsequent claim), and therefore has not been convicted of that offence. CST is in no position to assess the truthfulness or otherwise of any of the charges listed here, which we believe are due to be heard in an Israeli court next year. It is not clear from the indictment whether or not recordings exist of Salah’s speech, although it does list, as prosecution witnesses, representatives of Israeli media organisations and police officers who , it says, “receiv[ed] recordings from” Israeli TV and radio stations (this is in section C of the first indictment, on pages 3/4, entries 7,8, 9, 11, 12 & 13).
This second point touches on a third, wider point, which is more relevant to the UK environment in which CST operates. While it was to be expected that Salah’s supporters would produce a one-sided (and at times hysterical) response to the allegations against him, it was disappointing that the Guardian in particular, and some Members of Parliament, were not more cautious in accepting, and at times regurgitating, their propaganda. Antisemitism is a serious allegation. That means that it should not be made lightly; but it also means that, once made, it should be taken seriously by the mainstream media and by those who wish to campaign for Palestinian rights.
Related articles
Share this:
Like this: