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<h1 class="gmail-single_title">Seizure of mosque loudspeakers: Ben Gvir’s latest arbitrary decisions</h1>
<p class="gmail-single_date">Tuesday 3-December-2024 - <font size="1"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2024/12/03/329829/">https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2024/12/03/329829/</a></font></p>
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<p>NAZARETH, (PIC)</p>
<p>Under the cover of the ongoing bloody war in the Gaza Strip, National
Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir issued orders to police leadership to
tighten measures against the use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer
in mosques within 1948 occupied Palestine (Israel), particularly in
cities inhabited by Palestinians and settlers, such as Jerusalem, Ramla,
Lod, Haifa, and Nazareth.</p>
<p>Israeli army radio reports that this step responds to complaints from
Israelis who find the sound of the call to prayer “disturbing”. The
directives include the confiscation of loudspeakers used for the call to
prayer in mosques, and in cases where confiscation is not possible,
financial penalties are imposed as a punitive measure.</p>
<p>In a post on the platform “X,” Itamar Ben Gvir said, “I am proud to
lead a policy to stop the unreasonable noise coming from mosques, which
has become a danger to the residents of Israel.”</p>
<p>With the Israeli aggression that began on October 7, 2023, Ben Gvir
has intensified his inflammatory rhetoric, calling for the execution of
Palestinian detainees, the complete annexation of the West Bank, and the
resettlement in the Gaza Strip. He has also expressed his outright
rejection of any prisoner exchange deal with Palestinian factions in
Gaza, threatening to withdraw from and dismantle the government if such a
deal is made.</p>
<p><strong>The call to prayer will remain loud<br></strong>Sami Abu
Shahadeh, head of the National Democratic Assembly in the 1948 occupied
territories, said, “The call to prayer will continue to resonate in all
our villages and cities, and we will silence the voice of racism and
racists. Those who are disturbed by the call to prayer should not live
among us, as we reject racism and will not allow them to dictate our
lives in our towns and to preserve our religious, cultural, and national
heritage.”</p>
<p>Abu Shahadeh added, “It is unfortunate that Ben Gvir is not an
isolated case in Israeli society, but represents a broad current that
enjoys ongoing government support and submission to him and his agendas.
This compels us to struggle with various tools to preserve our rights
to our land, nation, and basic rights.”</p>
<p>Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab Joint List in the Knesset, said, “Ben
Gvir is a transient figure, no matter how powerful he becomes, and the
call to prayer is stronger than all racists and all man-made laws.” Odeh
confidently affirmed the strength of the call to prayer, warning
against efforts to create internal conflict among citizens. He cautioned
all institutions that the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir government is methodically
and deliberately leading toward this conflict.</p>
<p><strong>Igniting a religious war<br></strong>Ahmed Tibi, head of the
Arab Front and Change faction, stated that “Ben Gvir is determined to
ignite a religious war by exploiting the atmosphere of war to please his
electorate, suppress the Arab community, and persecute Arab citizens.
This time, he has targeted the muezzins and mosques. We will struggle
against this oppression and Islamophobia.”</p>
<p>It is noteworthy that in late 2016, right-wing Jewish lawmakers
proposed a bill to ban the call to prayer in mosques in Jerusalem and
1948 occupied Palestine. The bill was scheduled for discussion in the
Knesset but was canceled at the last minute.</p>
<p>At that time, Deputy Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman from the
United Torah Judaism party filed an appeal against the approval of the
ministerial legislation committee for the proposal to ban the call to
prayer, which led to the cancellation of the special session for voting
on it in the first reading. The Shas Jewish movement decided to vote
against the bill, fearing that its passage would lead to Jewish
bloodshed, especially given warnings that such a step would drag the
region into a religious war, which led to the failure of the proposed
law at that time.</p>
<p>Arab Knesset member Walid al-Hawashlah said, “Our mosque minarets
remain tall, and the voices of the call to prayer resound, no matter how
much a fascist minister or a racist official tries to silence them. Ben
Gvir and his ilk are incapable of extinguishing the call to prayer.
Israeli society today calls for the release of hostages in Gaza, while
the Prime Minister and an entire state are hostages in the hands of Ben
Gvir and religious Zionist fascism.”</p>
<p>He added that the occupation and its fascist ministers are what the Israeli society wants.</p>
<p><strong>Judaizing laws amid genocide<br></strong>In this context,
political analyst Yassin Azdine said in remarks to the PIC correspondent
that the Israeli government is exploiting the ongoing genocide in the
Gaza Strip to enact judaizing laws. Azdine added that the occupation
desires a war against Islam and Muslims, emphasizing the need to
confront these arbitrary laws with more steadfastness and resilience.</p>
<p>He explained that the Israeli government aims to seize land and erase
identity, killing in the Gaza Strip, confiscating land and areas in the
West Bank, and attempting to erase identity and culture in the 1948
occupied Palestine. Azdine said that Ben Gvir and his ilk in the Israeli
government see this as the right time to erase the Arab Islamic
identity of Palestine, and the war on the call to prayer is one aspect
of this declared war.</p>
<p>He said, “They estimate that they can pass whatever they want in
light of the shameful Arab and Islamic silence and the complicity of
America and Europe, especially since the Trump administration includes
anti-Islam figures and will thus strongly support such steps.”</p>
<p>He stressed that Ben Gvir will not stop at banning the call to
prayer, which he describes as noise; there will be successive steps that
may lead to closing mosques or seizing them. Azdine concluded by
recalling that the occupation state demolished three mosques last month,
two in Jerusalem and one in the Negev.</p>
<p><strong>Calls for action<br></strong>Hamas warned that the decision
by the extremist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to
confiscate loudspeakers from mosques in the occupied Palestinian
territories of 1948 heralds an escalation of a religious war that Israel
and its leaders are trying to ignite.</p>
<p>Hamas added in a statement on Sunday that Ben Gvir’s description of
the call to prayer as “noise” is “a serious crime and aggression against
our mosques and our people, and a new attack on freedom of worship.”</p>
<p>Hamas called on the Palestinian people in 1948 occupied Palestine to
reject this “criminal decision” and to take action to prevent the
Israeli authorities from tampering with sacred sites and religious
rituals.</p>
<p>The Movement also called on the Arab League, the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation, and international organizations to condemn this
heinous crime and take steps to stop the Israeli violations against the
Palestinian people.</p>
<p>Hamas said that the “Israeli fascist war criminals must be brought to
account for their crimes against our holy sites and our people in Gaza,
the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the occupied interior, and against
humanity as a whole.”</p>
<p>Ben Gvir boasted on Saturday about confiscating mosque loudspeakers, claiming they are “a source of disturbance.”</p>
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