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Israeli Muslim Leader Supports Terror Groups

Speaking to a gathering of some 50,000 in the northern Israeli Arab town of Umm-el-Fahm, an Israeli Arab sheikh, Raid Salah declared that the day was soon approaching that the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, would be wrested away by force from the Jewish state and made the capital of a reinstated Islamic caliphate (the establishment of which is the goal of terror groups such as al-Qaeda). The popular Muslim cleric last Friday also urged terror groups Hizballah and Hamas to not release the Israeli soldiers they attacked and kidnapped and are holding hostage

Salah said they should be held until Israel first frees every Arab security prisoner in its jails. The Hamas-led attack (and Hamas leads the Palestinian government) sparked Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip, which the Jewish state had left after 38 years last fall. And the Lebanese terror group Hizballah attack on July 12 sparked a 34-day war that devastated northern Israel and much of Lebanon.

Salah heads the northern branch of Israel`s Islamic Movement, and said that comatose former leader Ariel Sharon and scandal-plagued President Moshe Katsav were now suffering divine punishment for having sought to "harm" Muslim religious control over Jerusalem`s Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, site of the former First and Second Temples. Muslims claim the hilltop as their third holiest site, though Jerusalem is not mentioned (nor is Jerusalem) in the Qu`ran.