Raed Salah

Saleh also rejects the notion that there would be a difference between Palestinians living in Israel and those living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank: "As we see it, the Green Line means nothing, and there is no difference between Umm al-Fahm and Jenin (situated a few kilometres to the southwest, on the other side of the Green Line). We all live under occupation, and our struggle is essentially the same."[4] In 2011, while addressing an audience of students from Tel Aviv University, he reiterated his anti-occupation position stating: "We must keep fighting until we remove the Israeli occupation and free the holy Jerusalem."[12]

Salah believes that the Arabic language is threatened in Israel by Hebrew, which is the country's main language. He believes that preserving the Arabic language is important to preserving Palestinian identity: "If we want to preserve our identity, we have to preserve the Arabic language, and if we want to preserve Arabic, we have to love it." He likens the usage of Hebrew terms in the language as an invasion: "When we allow our tongues to be invaded daily by the use of Hebrew terms, it means that our land, homes, holy places, identity and thinking in Palestine are invaded and all components of our lives as individuals and collectives are attacked."[13]

Salah has on several occasions been accused of anti-Semitism. His detractors claimed that he referenced the blood libel antisemitic canard during a sermon in 2007, a claim he denied. In 2011, Salah published an article in Sawt al-Haq w'al-Huriyya in which he rhetorically asked "Were 4,000 Jewish clerks absent by chance, or was there another reason?" alluding to the conspiracy theory that the Israeli secret service Mossad was behind the September 11 attacks and had warned Jews not to turn up to work on the day of the attack.[14]

In 2011, in a statement in response to such allegations, Saleh stated: "I unequivocally condemn all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and racism towards my own people, the Palestinians."[15] Saleh believes that Zionists want to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. In an interview in 2020 he said: "We are in a new phase in which it is prohibited to criticise Zionism, in the sense that they want to make anti-Zionism synonymous with antisemitism. All those who criticize Zionism now will be subject to the measures that were taken against those accused of antisemitism."[16]

In 2003, Salah and 14 other officials of the Northern Branch were arrested on charges of transferring money to Hamas. After eighteen months of imprisonment Salah entered a plea bargain.[4] He admitted to charges of maintaining contact with a foreign agent and rendering service on behalf of illegal organizations. In exchange he only had to spend six more months in prison but would be banned from leaving Israel.[2] Salah had previously described the charges against him as "fabricated." His lawyer, commenting on the plea bargain that Salah had agreed to said "Salah understood that Israel is not the place to seek justice for non-Jews."[17]

In 2010, Salah was arrested for having spitted in the face of an Israeli policeman while shouting at him "You are racist murderers. You have no dignity" during a protest in 2007 in the Old City of Jerusalem. He denied those charges. The court initially sentenced him to nine months in prison but reduced the sentence to five months.[18][19]

In a related case, the court acquitted Salah of charges of rioting and "involvement in an illegal gathering" in connection with the protest. A judge ruled that the charges, brought by police, were "inconsistent with witness testimony and video evidence produced by the defence".[20]

When Salah was released from prison in December 2010, every Palestinian leader in Israel visited and paid their respects to him. Over 30,000 of his supporters gathered to express their commitment to protecting al-Aqsa.[21]

In 2007, Salah held a sermon in a mosque in East Jerusalem following archaeological digs close to al-Aqsa.[22] During the sermon he said:

We [Muslims] have never allowed ourselves to knead [the dough for] the bread that breaks the fast in the holy month of Ramadan with children's blood. Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the [Jewish] holy bread.[23]

Israeli newspapers at the time wrote that Salah accused Jews of historically having used children's blood to bake bread, an anti-Semitic blood libel. The comments resurfaced in 2011, during Saleh's detainment in Britain. He claimed that his intent wasn't to repeat a blood libel and that his use of the term "holy bread" showed that he weren't referring to Jews since there is no holy bread in Judaism.[24] The pro-Palestinian British press monitoring organization Middle East Monitor produced a report titled The Sheikh Raed Affair, defending Salah.[25] Other organizations disputed Salah's claims.

In 2013, Salah was tried for incitement to violence and racism for his 2007 sermon and convicted of incitement to violence but not to racism,[26] and sentenced to eight months in prison in March 2014.[27] Prosecutors appealed Salah's acquittal on the racism charge and the appeals court overturned the acquittal in November 2014, finding Salah guilty of incitement to racism for his "blood libel" comments.[28] In March 2015, the court sentenced him to eleven months in prison.[29] Salah appealed to the Supreme Court which in April 2016 reduced his sentence to nine months because the sermon happened a long time ago and Salah had not committed similar offenses since then.[30]

Salah began serving his sentence in May 2016 and was placed in solitary confinement. An Israeli court in October rejected the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights's appeal to end his isolation.[31] Salah began a hunger strike in November protesting the conditions under which he was held.[32][33]

In September 2009, protests that led to violent clashes between Israeli security forces and Muslim Palestinian protesters erupted over the status of the Temple Mount. On October 2, 2009, while the clashes were ongoing, Salah gave a speech which was branded incitement by the Israeli police, claiming that he had egged the protestors on. He was arrested on October 6, but released a few hours later. However, he was banned from entering Jerusalem for 30 days as the court argued that his presence in Jerusalem "could be inciting".[34][35]

Salah was on board the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship of the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which attempted to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. The ship was boarded in international waters by the Israeli Navy. This led to clashes with the activists during which Israeli commandos killed nine of them and injured dozens while seven commandos were injured. One Israeli police source claimed that Salah tried to provide cover for an activist who shot at a commando during the raid, but that the gunman had already been hit. Early Palestinian reports claimed that Salah had been critically injured by a gunshot wound to the head. Those reports were false and Salah had only suffered minor injuries.[36]

Salah was taken to the Ela Prison in Beersheba to await a court hearing on their involvement with the flotilla.[37] In June, Salah was released on NIS 150,000 bail, but placed under house arrest and temporarily barred from leaving Israel.[38] Hours after he was released, Salah gave a speech in Umm al-Fahm, claiming that Zionism "which began in Turkey, would end in Turkey".[39]

In April 2011, Salah and his wife were returning home after pilgrimage to Mecca. At the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank they were detained by Israeli police. When a female police officer wanted to strip-search his wife, Salah protested loudly. He yelled at the police and demanded that they treat his wife with respect. Other police officers restrained Salah but he broke free and tried to charge into the room where his wife was being searched.[40][41][42]

Salah was convicted three years later of "interrupting" police officers and fined NIS 9,000 as well as given a two-year probation.[40][43]

After entering the UK on June 28, 2011, Salah was detained the same day.[44] He was due to attend a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting with Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn, Yasmin Qureshi, and Richard Burden.[45] He requested to be released on bail, while awaiting the outcome of court proceedings, despite the Home Office Secretary's decision to bar him from the country, was granted on July 15 and he was released three days later.[46][47] The conditions for his release included wearing an electronic tag, observing a night-time curfew, reporting to immigration officials, and refraining from public-speaking.[48]

Palestinians accused the Israeli government of being behind the arrest. In a statement, Home Secretary Theresa May said that she sought to have Saleh deported for his extremist views.[49]

A judicial review of the arrest of Salah took place on September 30, 2011 during which the court ruled that Salah was entitled to damages due to wrongful detention. In response, May sought to ban Salah.[50] On October 26, an immigration tribunal concluded that May had been justified in her position. The tribunal stated that it is "satisfied that the appellant has engaged in the unacceptable behaviour of fostering hatred which might lead to intercommunity violence in the UK."[51]

Salah successfully appealed the decision. The court ruled that there were no grounds for expelling him nor denying him freedom of speech and that he wasn't a danger to British society.[52]

In August 2017, a month after Salah was released from prison, having served a nine-month sentence for his 2007 sermon in East Jerusalem, he was again arrested. This time on allegations of membership in an illegal organization (the Northern Branch) and of inciting to terror over a sermon he gave in July the same year in which he praised the "martyrs of Al-Aqsa" and those guarding it.[53][54]

During the trial, Salah argued that his views were religious opinions and that he did not call for violence.[54] His lawyer said that quoting from the Quran should be protected by freedom of speech, and that it is a matter of interpretation whether such quotes are Islamic discourse or incitement.[55]

On February 10, 2020, a court in Israel sentenced Salah to 28 months in prison for "inciting to terror".[56] An appeals court upheld Salah's conviction and he began serving his sentence on August 4.[57]

While he was taken to prison, hundreds of his supporters gathered outside in a show of solidarity with their preacher, chanting "Every Muslim and Arab in the world is proud of you — I do not respect the court's decision." Jamal Zahalka, former leader of the Arab-Israeli Balad party, said that Salah was the victim of a witch hunt: "this is another milestone in his political persecution. The [Northern Branch of the] Islamic Movement has been outlawed, now the right to speak is also outlawed."[54]

On December 13, 2021, he was released from prison after having served 16 months of his sentence.[58]