Islamic Movement: Katsav charges are penalty for plan to divide Temple Mount.
By JPOST.COM STAFFjp.services2(photo credit: )
Sheikh Raid Salah, head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, urged Hizbullah and Hamas not to release kidnapped IDF soldiers Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, and Gilad Shalit.
Salah declared that the organizations should release the soldiers only after Israel releases all the security prisoners currently incarcerated, and said that Israel should also release Israeli Arabs imprisoned for security reasons.
At the movement's annual rally, held in the soccer stadium in Umm el-Fahm, Salah also said that the day "was not far off" that Israeli rule over the Temple Mount would be thrown off, and Jerusalem would become the capital of a new Muslim caliphate.
Salah said God was punishing former prime minister Ariel Sharon and President Moshe Katsav for their attempts to "harm" the Temple Mount. Katsav's current legal troubles, he said, were a divine punishment for a proposal Katsav had made to divide authority over the Mount between Jews and Muslims.
In response to Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments about Islam, which have sparked protests throughout the Muslim world, Salah condemned the statements, and hoped that they had been unintentional.
Police said that the rally, which drew about 50,000 people this year, was smaller than in previous years.
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