By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Aug 26, 2005
Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, head of the influential northern branch of the Islamic Movement, threatened Friday to lead Israeli Arabs in a revolt against the Jewish state.
Salah's inflammatory remarks came during a prayer service at Tel Aviv's Hassan Bek Mosque. Last week two Israelis hurled a severed pig's head into the mosque's courtyard hoping to incite violence that would thwart the expulsion of Gaza's Jews.
But Salah, who was only recently released from an Israeli prison for funneling money to Hamas, insisted the act of desecration was part of a Zionist plot to drive away Israel's Arab Muslims.
?Anyone who thinks they can get us to leave our land had better prepare a million coffins for Palestinians in this country,? he said defiantly.
The sheikh suggested the Jews were actively laying the groundwork for an attack against Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque, which occupies Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount.
?The establishment is trying to get rid of Al Aqsa. The Zionists won't rest until there is an ugly attack [against it].?
This month's killing of four Israeli Arabs by a young Jewish soldier also elicited what were described as wildly exaggerated responses.
Israeli Arab Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi at the time went so far as to suggest ?Jewish terrorism? against the nation's Arabs was ?running rampant.?