Religious leader arrested for ‘inciting violence’

JERUSALEM: Israeli police arrested an Islamic religious leader on Tuesday who has been repeatedly accused of inciting violence over a Jerusalem holy site where tensions again flared last month.
Raed Salah, released from prison in January after serving a nine-month sentence, is accused of inciting violence and terrorism as well as support for and participation in an illegal organization, police said.
His group, the radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was outlawed in 2015 after it was accused of inciting violence linked to Jerusalem’s Haram Al-Sharif mosque compound.
Police said in Tuesday’s statement that Salah, an Arab Israeli, is accused of having publicly supported violent acts against the country on several occasions following the ban on his organization.
It was not clear whether the accusations were linked to last month’s deadly unrest surrounding the holy site, which includes Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden-topped Dome of the Rock.
Violence erupted in and around the compound after three Arab Israelis shot dead two Israeli policemen on July 14.
Israel responded by installing metal detectors at the entrance to the complex, used as a staging point for the attack.
For nearly two weeks, worshippers refused to submit to the checks and staged mass prayers in surrounding streets.
Ensuing protests and clashes left seven Palestinians dead, while three Israelis were fatally stabbed by a Palestinian assailant.
The crisis abated when Israel removed the detectors.
Salah served a nine-month prison term after being convicted of fomenting violent protests over the holy site.
He was convicted of having incited violence in a 2007 speech. He was convicted in 2014 and his appeals were later denied.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said in a statement following Salah’s Tuesday arrest that he hoped “this time justice will be done and he will be sent behind bars for a long time.”
The compound, central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the third-holiest in Islam.
It is located in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognized by the international community.
Palestinians fear Israel will gradually seek to assert further control over it, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly he is committed to the status quo.
On Monday, a rabbi and lawmaker from Israel’s ruling party held office hours outside Haram Al-Sharif compound to protest a government ban on visits by MPs and ministers.
Yehuda Glick, who was shot in 2014 over his campaign for Jewish prayer rights at Haram Al-Sharif said it was a one-day action.
“I’m here to protest the fact that the prime minister won’t enable police to allow us to enter the Temple Mount,” said Glick.
“I suffer every day I can’t enter the Temple Mount,” he said, as he held court at one of the gates to the compound alongside a number of bodyguards.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had in October 2015 imposed the ban on visits by MPs and ministers to the religious site in an effort to restore calm after an outbreak of violence.
Glick had in March petitioned the Supreme Court against Netanyahu’s ban.
The government decided in response to allow lawmakers to visit the compound for a “pilot number of days” in July, but the outbreak of violence there put off the plan.
Glick, a US-born rabbi, survived a 2014 assassination attempt over his campaign for Jewish prayer rights at the site before he joined Parliament as a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Glick described the site as “the essence of my life.”
“There’s no reason in the world to think that my entering the Temple Mount will stir trouble,” he said.