Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu defended the government move to outlaw the radical Islamic Movment on Wednesday and said that Israel is not at war with Islam.
He said:
The northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel is undermining the state. It incites violence against innocent people. It has close ties with the Hamas terrorist organization and it seeks to subvert the state in order to establish an Islamic caliphate in its place.
We have nothing against Islam. We have nothing against the Muslim citizens of Israel, who enjoy full equal rights, and the great majority of whom are law-abiding. But we will continue to act against those who incite and who encourage terrorism, wherever they are.
Several Arab Knesset Members sounded not much less hateful than the Islamic Movement after the government ban on the anti-Israel organization and last night’s police and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) raids on Islamic Movement offices and associated NGOs.
MK Talab Abu Arar charged that Israel “declared war on the Arab community in Israel, and Israel had to bear the consequences.”
He added:
The Islamic Movement will not stop defending the Al-Aqsa Mosque and won’t remain silent towards what is going on there.
What is going on at the Temple Mount is that the Islamic Movement, Hama and Palestinian Authority Muslim clerics are trying to keep it Jew-free.
The southern branch of the Islamic Movement labeled the Israeli government “fascist.”
MK Basel Ghattas summed up the view of Arab leaders by saying:
Ban Zionism.