Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman effectively blocked Wednesday’s planned vote on the “muezzin bill” banning religious institutions from having outdoor loudspeakers, out of concern that it would ban the siren announcing the beginning of Shabbat.



In a letter to the cabinet sent Tuesday evening, Litzman submitted an appeal of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s approval of a bill, citing the Talmud, which says that a shofar would be blown as the Sabbath began.

“For thousands of years in the Jewish tradition, different tools were used for this action, including the shofar and trumpets. With technological developments, loudspeakers are used to announce the beginning of Shabbat at a volume permissible by law,” he wrote.As such, Litzman argued, the muezzin bill would break the current status quo on religion and state.The initiative in question seeks to prohibit all religious institutions from using outdoor loudspeakers, but both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the bill’s primary sponsor, MK Moti Yogev (Bayit Yehudi), spoke specifically about the Muslim call to prayer waking people up.Yogev has indicated that he would be willing to alter the legislation to ban only the use of loudspeakers at certain times, so the muezzin’s call can be played during regular waking hours, though at a limited decibel level. However, Netanyahu said he prefers the proposal remain as is.Some MKs in the Joint List called for civil disobedience if the “muezzin bill” passes.MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint List) said Muslims should “non-violently disobey this law,” meaning to continue the call to prayer five times a day, including at dawn, from outdoor loudspeakers. Tibi said if Netanyahu does not like the call of the muezzin from Jisr e-Zarka, near the prime minister’s home in Caesarea, he can “go and move to Herzliya Pituah.”“I am a Muslim, the muezzin says Allah Akbar five times a day. It’s been this way since before Netanyahu arrived in this country and before he moved to Caesarea,” Tibi told The Jerusalem Post.According to Tibi, the bill is “Islamophobic,” and that if there were a law against blowing the shofar in Germany or France, it would be called antisemitism.“There are laws that a person with a conscience cannot obey. Thomas Jefferson said that if the law is not just, it is not only right not to obey it, it is obligatory not to obey it,” he said.Tibi speculated that the muezzin bill is making progress now, as opposed to in past Knessets when it was previously proposed, because there is “a new president of the US who is also against Muslims.”Similarly, MK Masud Gnaim (Joint List) said in an interview with the Knesset Channel that “the whole Arab public should not respect this law, plain and simple. A law like this, that harms our religion, our identity and our freedom of worship – we will not respect it.”On Monday, MK Taleb Abu Arar (Joint List) chanted the call to prayer from the Knesset podium. Amid vocal protest from MK Oren Hazan (Likud), the deputy Knesset speaker on duty, Yitzhak Vaknin (Shas), said that Abu Arar was within his rights.MK Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu), one of the muezzin bill’s sponsors, called for Attorney- General Avichai Mandelblit to open a criminal investigation against Tibi for calling for “rebellion against the State of Israel.”Ilatov pointed out that Tibi originally made his call to break the law “should it pass” to Al-Mayadin, a Lebanese network that has ties to Hezbollah.“Tibi incites non-stop against the State of Israel, at the service of terrorist organizations that call to destroy Israel. He is a fifth column; all of his efforts are directed at harming and inciting against Israel and its sovereignty,” Ilatov stated. “I will do all I can to ensure that traitors and terrorists will not be public representatives in the Knesset.”Earlier in the day, Yogev called on opposition MKs to support the bill.“We are not violating freedom of religion; we are preventing harm to most citizens who are woken by the muezzin’s call. There are tired Arab students too, tired drivers, babies who are woken up, even when double windows are installed,” he said.Yogev added that since the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved the bill earlier this week, he has received hundreds of emails, text messages and calls from Jews and Muslims who support it.“We will be happy to reach understandings and agreements in the [committee] discussions? – after the bill is approved in a preliminary reading,” he said.Joint List activists had planned to hold a protest against the bill at the Jaffa clock tower on Wednesday evening.Ben Lynfield contributed to this report.

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`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ }); </s> It would be easy to miss the mosque in a temporary building with a concrete floor and corrugated roof. But it is impossible to miss the constellation of six loudspeakers atop a giant metal structure resembling the Eiffel Tower.

Five times a day, starting well before dawn, these loudspeakers broadcast the muezzin’s call to prayer in Lod, a city of Arabs and Jews near Ben-Gurion International Airport, and therein lies one more friction point in a country full of them. One group’s expression of faith is another’s noise pollution, and Israel’s government is planning a crackdown.

A proposal backed by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and initially endorsed this week by his ministers would authorise the government to ban the use of loudspeakers by mosques and other houses of worship across Israel. For many on both sides of the nation’s sectarian line, few questions could prove more provocative than whether the muezzin should be muzzled.

“The call to prayer is a symbol of Islam,” said Adel Elfar, the imam of the Lod mosque, one of several that have been controversial here. “This is something that’s existed for 1,426 years.” He said that he could hear bells from a Christian church in town and that Jewish residents drove around the city every couple of months broadcasting from loudspeakers on their vehicles. “The call of every religion, if you get rid of extremism, shouldn’t bother anybody,” he added.

And yet it does. Among those bothered is Lod’s mayor, Yair Revivo, who is Jewish and announced last month that the city would broadcast the Shema, a central prayer that begins “Hear O Israel”, to counter the mosques’ call. The first of Islam’s five daily prayers begins before dawn, noted Col Motti Yogev, a member of parliament who introduced the new ban. “The goal of the law is to prevent people’s sleep from being disturbed,” he said. “We have no desire to harm the prayer of the Muslims.”

The fight over the muezzin underscores a fundamental societal challenge for Israel beyond its conflict with Palestinians living in Gaza or the occupied West Bank. About 20 per cent of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, and cities like Lod, where about a third of the nearly 73,000 residents are Arab, perennially struggle to find a comfortable balance. The conflict has also grown in Jerusalem, which is divided between largely Jewish and Arab communities.

The proposed ban, approved last Sunday by Netanyahu’s ministers and sent to parliament, has drawn denunciations from Jordan and the Palestinian Authority . In a sign of the complexity of the issue, it drew surprise opposition on Tuesday from Israel’s ultra-Orthodox health minister, Yaakov Litzman , who temporarily blocked parliamentary debate and sent the issue back to the ministers because it might also affect the use of sirens to announce the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.

Ahmad Tibi, a leader of the Arab members of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, said Netanyahu was inflaming anti-Muslim sentiments. “If the muezzin law passes the Knesset, I call on the Arab public in Israel to rise up; I call for a civil popular uprising,” he told a Lebanese television outlet. “All Muslims must be called to protect mosques, to defend the calls from the mosques.”

Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, a non-profit organisation that promotes coexistence between Jews and Arabs, said the proposal conflicted with Netanyahu’s recent drive to increase investment in Arab communities to reduce gaps in educational and economic opportunities.

“You see those two conflicting trends yet again, which basically tells me that the Israeli establishment still hasn’t made up its mind in regard to its Arab citizens,” he said. “What do we want from the Arab Palestinian minority? Do we want to really integrate it and include it as an integrated part of Israeli society?”

The text of the proposed ban on mosque loudspeakers says that “hundreds of thousands of citizens” in parts of Israel “suffer habitually and daily from loud and unreasonable noise that is caused by the call of muezzin from mosques.” Yogev said it could be narrowed to apply only to sleeping hours.

Netanyahu has said he is trying to balance competing interests. “Israel is committed to freedom for all religions, but is also responsible for protecting citizens from noise,” he said this week.

In Lod, which traces its history to the days of Canaan, frustration over the mosques has grown as more Jewish residents have moved in since the evacuation of settlements in Gaza a decade ago. There is already a noise law on the books, but advocates of the new legislation said it was not applied to the muezzin.

“If someone is having a karaoke party with loudspeakers at night and you call the police, they will come and take down the loudspeakers,” said Amichai Langfeld, a member of the city council. “But if you call about the mosque, they won’t.”

Under existing law, Langfeld added, police have to test the level of the call to prayer – or of any noise – to determine if it exceeded the limit. The new law would simply ban the use of loudspeakers.

At Elfar’s mosque, the call to prayer was broadcast Tuesday at 4.45am, 11.25am, 2.21pm, 4.47pm and 6.05pm. The tension over the loudspeakers was easy to detect in a visit to a clothes and jewellery market a few blocks away. Several Jewish shoppers and salespeople said that they did not mind the call during daylight hours, but that the earliest one invariably woke them up. Some described trying to muffle the noise with curtains or blankets, often to little effect.

Naama Reichmann (32), who moved to Lod about five years ago, said the 4.45am call made it hard for her and her two-year-old daughter to sleep through the night. “We don’t say they can’t do it, but not so loud,” she said. Chaim Koti (80), who was selling clothes, was more pointed. “They do it intentionally loud in order to bother us,” he said.

A few feet away, a group of Muslim vendors said the proposal to limit the muezzin was a slap in the face to them. They noted that the call to prayer had been sounded in Lod since long before Netanyahu came to power. “There’s hate for Arabs,” said Muhyi Sharabat (22). “There are people who are against Islam.”

Safiya Matweeye (19), said authorities should focus on crime and violence instead of things that could discourage prayer. “It’s a good thing, because people come to pray instead of shooting each other in the street,” she said. “Religion keeps people honest.”

As they spoke, the afternoon call to prayer sounded. No one looked up. After a few minutes, it was over, the latest trumpet in Israel’s culture war. </s> JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Sephardi Orthodox Shas party has proposed a bill that would prevent any kind of non-Orthodox public prayer at the Western Wall.

Under the draft bill announced late Monday by Shas, a fine of some $2,500 or a six-month prison sentence would be levied on participants in egalitarian prayer services or on women who use a tallit or tefillin.

The bill would place the site under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbinate and would be governed under the religious practice approved by the Chief Rabbinate and the country’s rabbinic courts, which in practice is Orthodox.

Passage of the bill would torpedo the agreement in January for an egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall negotiated by the Reform and Conservative movements, the Women of the Wall organization, the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government.

The Shas bill, which is expected to be opposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly has little chance of becoming law.

It would prohibit any ceremony “that is not held according to local custom, that offends the feelings of the worshipers in the Holy place.” The measure also would bar “an act that could disturb the worshipers with their prayer; mixed prayers of men and women” in any area of the Western Wall plaza. That would include “a ceremony in the Women’s section that includes taking out the Torah scroll and reading from it, blowing on shofars, and wearing prayer shawls or phylacteries.”

In a statement, Shas said the bill has received the support of many factions and many Knesset members have already signed it, but without naming any parties or lawmakers specifically.

“The law will create essential order in the holiest place of the Jewish people and will regulate its status according to Jewish religious law,” the statement said.

It added: “We have no doubt that this bill faithfully reflects the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public and will return the Wall’s proper status, dignity and sanctity.”

The proposed bill comes days after a Reform synagogue in the central Israel city of Raanana was vandalized with hate messages, some referring to egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

In a post on Facebook, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, pointed out that the Shas party did not condemn the attack on the Kehilat Raanan synagogue nor the death threat against the rabbi.

“Our business is with the Prime Minister, who for four years led the negotiations,” Kariv wrote. “Just two weeks ago he committed before the Jewish leadership in North America to implement the layout of the Western Wall. He’s the one standing for the test. Not Aryeh Deri,” the head of the Shas party.

Under the agreement announced in January and approved by the Cabinet in a 15-5 vote, the egalitarian section of the wall near Robinson’s Arch would be expanded and placed under the authority of a pluralist committee. The plan called for solidifying haredi Orthodox control over the site’s traditional Orthodox section.

Earlier this month, leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements in the United States and Israel brought at least 12 Torah scrolls into the women’s section of the Western Wall plaza for a prayer service. The scrolls were carried into the women’s section for use during the Women of the Wall’s monthly prayer service at the wall as part of a protest march against restrictions on egalitarian worship at the site and calling for the implementation of the deal. </s> An Israeli Arab lawmaker says he is resigning from parliament for "ideological reasons" to protest the recent passage of a controversial law enshrining the state's Jewish character.

Labor lawmaker Zuhair Bahloul says Sunday he can no longer serve in a country that officially marginalizes the 20 percent Arab minority he represents.

Bahloul, a former popular sports broadcaster, is regarded as a symbol of Jewish and Arab coexistence.

His departure marks further fallout from the explosive bill, which has also seen strong opposition from a Druze minority that serves in the military and feels slighted by the legislation.

Israel's 1948 declaration of independence defined its nature as a Jewish and democratic state. The government says the bill merely enshrines the country's existing character but critics say it undercuts its democratic values. </s> An Israeli-Arab legislator says he is resigning from parliament for “ideological reasons” to protest against the recent passage of a controversial law enshrining the state’s Jewish character.

An Israeli-Arab legislator says he is resigning from parliament for “ideological reasons” to protest against the recent passage of a controversial law enshrining the state’s Jewish character.

Labour lawmaker Zuhair Bahloul said he can no longer serve in a country that officially marginalises the 20% Arab minority he represents.

Mr Bahloul, formerly a popular sports broadcaster, is regarded as a symbol of Jewish-Arab co-existence.

His departure marks further fallout from the explosive bill, which has also seen strong opposition from a Druze minority that serves in the military and feels slighted by the legislation.

Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence defined its nature as a Jewish and democratic state. The government says the bill merely enshrines the country’s existing character but critics say it undercuts its democratic values. </s> Ultra-orthodox party Shas has proposed a bill that would thwart the mixed prayer area for conservative and reform Jewish believers at Western Wall south of the existing prayer areas that has already been approved by the government. Shas's leader, Aryeh Deri, has already voiced his objections to the planned mixed prayer area.

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The initiative aims to have the area declared as a sacred site under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbinate, which would have the ultra-orthodox establishment decide on the modes of prayer that would be deemed acceptable there.

Reform prayers at the Westrn Wall (Photo: AP)

The proposed bill prohibits "conducting a ceremony—including a religious ceremony—that does not coincide with local customs and is hurtful to the people praying at the site." It also includes a ban on mixed male-female prayer, women wrapping themselves in the traditional talit or laying tefillin. It sets a NIS 10,000 fine for those who would not abide by these rules.

Aryeh Deri (Photo: Yair Sagi)

Attorney Masorti traditional Judaism organization Executive-Director Yizhar Hess, who has been fighting for the establishment of a new area of prayer for non ultra-orthodox believers, attacked the new bill. "This is nothing less than madness. We never imagined that the current government, the most nationalist of our governments, would take part in such a post-Zionist act. This law would tell the vast majority of Jews in Israel and the world that they aren't Jews. We won't let this slide. I call on the prime minister to stop this madness before it's too late." </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Zouheir Bahloul branded Israel's parliament as racist and destructive

An Israeli Arab politician has resigned in opposition to a controversial new law which declares Israel to be the nation state of the Jewish people.

Zouheir Bahloul, 67, branded parliament "racist" and "destructive" for passing the law, which also puts Hebrew above Arabic as the official language.

"[The law] removes the Arab population from the path of equality in Israel," he told Israeli TV network Reshet.

The bill passed on 19 July, provoking anger from Israel's Arab minority.

Arab members of the Knesset tore up copies of the bill and shouted their disgust, before some were thrown out of the chamber.

"I am resigning from the Knesset," Mr Bahloul, a member of the opposition Zionist Union party, said on Saturday.

"Should I sit on the fence? Should I give legitimacy to this destructive, racist, extremist parliament?"

He added that he could not face telling his grandson that he had kept his seat in the Knesset.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Israeli Arab MPs protest and rip copies of the bill after Knesset passes nation state law

After the bill was passed, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised it as a "defining moment" in the country's history.

"A hundred and twenty-two years after [the founder of modern Zionism Theodore] Herzl made his vision known, with this law we determined the founding principle of our existence," he said.

Called The Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People, the legislation essentially defines Israel first and foremost as a Jewish state.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Israeli Arabs have long complained of discrimination

It was created because some Israeli Jewish politicians consider the founding principles of Israel's creation, as a state for Jews in their ancient homeland, to be under threat.

But Israeli Arabs, who comprise about 20% of the country's population, see it as evidence that Israel is downgrading their status.

They have equal rights under the law but have long complained of being treated as second-class citizens and say they face discrimination and worse provisions than Israeli Jews. </s> An Israeli Arab lawmaker resigned on Saturday and branded the parliament "racist" after it passed a controversial new law which declares Israel the nation state of the Jewish people.

The new legislation speaks of Israel as the historic homeland of the Jews and says they have a "unique" right to self-determination there. It also revokes the longstanding status of Arabic as an official language alongside Hebrew.

Zouheir Bahloul, of the opposition Zionist Union party, said he could not face telling his grandson that he remained part of the same chamber which passed the law.

"I am resigning from the Knesset," he said on Reshet TV, in reference to Israel's parliament.

"The nation state law officially, constitutionally, removes the Arab population from the path of equality in Israel," he said in Hebrew.

"Should I sit on the fence? Should I give legitimacy to this destructive, racist, extremist parliament?"

Bahloul said that his resignation would officially take effect when parliament returns from its summer recess in September, but he pledged not to reconsider in the meantime.

"I faithfully promise that I shall not go back," he said.

After the law was approved earlier this month Arab members of parliament branded the legislation "racist" and ripped up copies of the bill in the Knesset chamber.

Arab citizens make up some 17.5 percent of Israel's more than eight million population.

The law makes no mention of equality and Israel's democratic character, implying the country's Jewish identity takes precedence.

Leaders of Israel's 130,000-strong Druze Arab community, which unlike Muslims and Christians is subject to the military draft, has filed a challenge to the law with the country's Supreme Court.

On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with Israeli Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Muafak Tarif and a retired Druze general.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu made no commitment and said that he would continue to hold consultations," the premier's office said in a statement.

Also present at the meeting was Communications Minister Ayoob Kara, a member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party.

He voted in favour of the law and has since reportedly received death threats. </s> WARSAW (Reuters) - Police early Saturday forcefully broke up an hours-long blockade of exits from the Polish parliament by protesters who said ruling party lawmakers violated the constitution by illegally passing the budget for next year.

The passage sparked the biggest political standoff in years in European Union member Poland and the sharpest escalation of the conflict between the opposition and the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party since it came to power in October 2015.

The head of the PiS party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, left parliament in the early hours of Saturday after police used force to remove protesters blocking the exit from parliament, television footage showed.

“PiS has crossed a certain line and nothing will be the same again,” Tomasz Siemoniak, deputy leader of the biggest opposition party Civic Platform told local media outside parliament.

Opposition party lawmaker Jerzy Meysztowicz told television network TVN24 that police used tear gas to disperse the protesters who tried to prevent the convoy of cars carrying Kaczynski and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo from leaving.

Warsaw police spokesman Mariusz Mrozek denied use of tear gas, but confirmed physical force was used to remove protesters.

Mrozek said the gathering before the parliament has been declared illegal starting from midnight.

By 0237 GMT, many protesters had left, but some remained. Several opposition lawmakers said they would spend the night in parliament.

CRISIS

Polish opposition parties accused PiS of violating the constitution after Speaker Marek Kuchcinski moved a key vote on next year’s budget outside of the main chamber of parliament and blocked the media from recording the vote.

It was the first time since Poland’s transition from communism in 1989 that a sitting of the lower chamber of parliament and a budget vote were held outside of the main chamber.

“The ‘sitting’ was illegal. Period. This is a constitutional crisis,” Civic Platform head Grzegorz Schetyna said on social media.

Kuchcinski transferred the sitting after opposition lawmakers occupied the parliamentary podium protesting against a plan to curb media access and Kuchcinski’s decision to exclude one opposition lawmaker.

Demonstrators hold banners "Free Parliamnent, Free Media, Free Poles" during a protest in Gdansk, Poland December 17, 2016. REUTERS/Bartosz Banka/Agencja Gazeta

PiS earlier this week announced a plan to curb access of the media to the parliament, spurring widespread protests by non-state media and the opposition amid concern the right-wing government is intent on curtailing freedom of press.

The opposition said the budget vote was illegal as it was impossible to confirm that the required number of lawmakers was present.

“There is no proof that a quorum of lawmakers was present. We suspect that people who were not allowed to vote took part,” leader of the opposition Nowoczesna party Ryszard Petru said.

Before leaving parliament, Kaczynski said the vote was legal and involved the required number of MPs. Other PiS lawmakers echoed his comments.

“What the opposition did was a scandal. And we were working,” said PiS lawmaker Jaroslaw Zielinski.

AFTERMATH

Since coming to power, PiS has passed laws that made it more difficult for the constitutional court to pass rulings, a move that led the European Commission to say democracy and rule of law were threatened in Poland.

The nationalist-minded, eurosceptic PiS party has also tightened control over public news media and state prosecution. The party has approved legislation that human rights groups said would curtail freedom of assembly.

PiS is the first party since Poland’s transition to democracy to hold an outright majority in parliament.

Civic Platform lawmakers said they had difficulties accessing the hall where PiS lawmakers voted.

“I was able to enter the hall only after pushing aside guards,” Civic Platform (PO) lawmaker Slawomir Nitras told Reuters. “The access routes to microphones were blocked by chairs.”

Direct access for media to the hall was denied, with reporters only able to observe an official camera feed.

Opposition parties Civic Platform, Nowoczesna together with the PSL party said the speaker violated the constitution and demanded parliament continue its sitting next week.

Slideshow (6 Images)

Commentators warned that further escalation of the conflict might lead to violence, like in Ukraine during anti-government protests in 2013 and 2014.

“It may lead to a nation-wide tragedy. We have to be aware of this,” former head of the constitutional court Jerzy Stepien told local media.
A so-called "Muezzin Bill" which would limit the volume and usage time of loudspeakers in mosques during muezzin to decrease noise pollution is put to parliament in Israel and opposed by both Arab and Jewish ultra-orthodox parties.