Supreme Court reduces jail term for Islamist leader

The Supreme Court on Monday reduced the prison sentence of Israeli Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah, but rejected an appeal against his conviction for incitement to violence.

In a two-to-one decision, the justices cut two months off an 11-month sentence against the head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, a hard-line offshoot of the group recently outlawed by Israeli authorities.

Salah, 57, will start his nine-month sentence at the beginning of next month.

Salah was sentenced last year to 11 months in prison for incitement to violence and racism over an inflammatory sermon he delivered in 2007 in Jerusalem. He has previously served terms for similar offenses.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Salah of stirring up trouble on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem ahead of this month’s Jewish holiday of Passover.

During the 2007 sermon, Salah expressed hope that “the streets of Jerusalem be purified with the blood of the innocent, who shed it in order to separate from their souls the soldiers of the Israel occupation, also in the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque.” He further said that “our finest moment will be when we meet Allah as martyrs in al-Aqsa.”

Israel banned the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement on November 17, 2015, charging it with links to terrorist groups and inciting the recent wave of violence, which has seen almost-daily stabbing and shooting attacks by Palestinians and some Israeli Arabs over a period of six months.

The group rejects the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and boycotts national elections on the grounds that they give legitimacy to the institutions of the Jewish state.

AFP and JTA contributed to this report