Islamic leader ‘deserves life sentence,’ insists extremist Israeli politician

An extremist right-wing politician in Israel has said that Islamic leader Shaikh Raed Salah “deserves a life sentence”, Al-Resalah reported on Tuesday. Former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made his comments on Facebook, accusing the Palestinian rights activist of being a “terrorist”. Shaikh Salah was sentenced by an Israeli court to 11 months in prison this week, with the sentence due to start on 15 November.

According to Knesset member Itzik Shmuli, the decision to send Salah to prison is “moral” and “just.” In comments reported by Maariv, he said that the time has come “for the inciters to fly to prison.”

However, the head of the High Arab Follow-up Committee in Israel, Mohamed Baraka, criticised the sentence as a “political decision which has nothing to do with the criminal law.” He repeated his belief that this is an Israeli attempt to criminalise the political activities of Israel’s Arab citizens.