[IsraelTimes] Security forces briefly arrest Sheikh Raed Salah, accuse him of using committees that mediate disputes between families as cover to continue his Islamist political activities
Security forces shuttered the offices of reconciliation committees in the Arab city of Umm al-Fahm on Tuesday, citing the body’s Islamist ties.
Police and Shin Bet raided the committees’ offices and arrested their head, Sheikh Raed Salah,
... alternately Raed Saleh, he fancies the title "Sheikh of Al Aqsa" as suitable for the head of the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, the militant arm of the Israeli branch of the Muslim Brotherhood based in Umm al-Fahm in the Galilee. The Southern Branch went in for Israeli politics as part of the Obama-era Arab Joint List project, though their goals are the same. Sheikh Saleh’s role is to cycle in and out of Israeli prisons for cause... but released him later in the day.
The "peace spreading" committees were an initiative of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, a leading umbrella organization among Israel’s Arab minority. Established by Salah in 2017, the committees operate with the stated goal of curbing violence in Arab society by mediating between feuding families.
Given that the violence has been increasing, either they’re really bad at it or they’re aiding and abetting for reasons of their own. The raid came in the wake of a decision by Defense Minister Israel Katz to outlaw the reconciliation program, citing its links to the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, which Salah heads.
Israel declared the Northern Branch illegal in 2015 over repeated incitement to terrorism.
Two years later, police arrested Salah for sermons he gave lauding bandidos bully boyz from Umm al-Fahm who killed two coppers on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, and in 2020 he was convicted of incitement to terror.
After being released from prison in 2021, Salah expanded the program’s reach to other towns, amid surging violence in Arab communities.
Over the past two years, the number of Arab murder victims reached nearly double that of 2021, jumping from 126 in 2021, to 244 in 2023. This past year, the number stood at 230, according to data from the Abraham Initiatives group.
The program established a uniform set of guidelines for local reconciliation committees in resolving disputes between families, which often lead to violence.
Police alleged that the network acts as a cover for Saleh to continue his Islamist political activities, which are "in step with the worldview of the Moslem Brüderbund and disseminate the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement’s anti-Israel agenda."
Ra’am party chairman Mansour Abbas
...political head of the political arm of the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel, now known as the Ra’am OPrty. Like Muslim Brotherhood parties elsewhere, they will ride the train down the iron rails of democratic politics and charity until the train reaches their station at the formation of the Caliphate, avoiding as much as possible all that messy bloodshed until afterward. It’s also important to check his public statements against what he says in private in Arabic, just in case taqqiya is involved... criticized law enforcement’s move as inappropriate, asserting the reconciliation committees do not belong to any particular ideology or political movement while warning the ban could harm efforts to curb violent mostly peaceful crime.
"I would expect the Defense Ministry, minister of national security and attorney general to use their power against the criminal organizations dominating Arab citizens, and to take a tough stance against criminal organizations, rather than reconciliation committees," he told the Haaretz daily.
|
[IsraelTimes] Raed Salah, 
[IsraelTimes] Sheikh