Raed Salah Gives Lecture at Haifa U.

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Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah gave a talk to Arab students at Haifa University on Wednesday, while Jewish students were not allowed into the lecture hall.

The Jewish students expressed their outrage at how the hard-line sheikh was let in to the campus, but the university said it couldn’t prevent Salah’s entrance, saying that they had their hands tied.

“We didn’t invite him, but in the end, for legal reasons, we had to let him in,” said the university in a statement.

The head of the extremist northern branch of the Islamic Movement, which denies Israel’s legitimacy, holds Israeli citizenship.

During Wednesday’s lecture, Salah – who has served a two-year sentence for a series of security offenses, including financing Hamas activities – said that Jerusalem was an “Arab, Muslim and Palestinian issue alone.”

He also claimed Israel constantly dug tunnels under the Temple Mount and that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was planning to rebuild the Temple.

In March, Jerusalem police arrested the fiery leader for assaulting police officers at an illegal east Jerusalem gathering.

In January 2008, Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz filed an indictment against Salah, charging him with incitement to violence and racism in a speech he made protesting the archeological dig carried out at the Old City’s Mughrabi Gate. During his sermon in Jerusalem’s Wadi Joz neighborhood on February 16, 2007, Salah urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to “save al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the occupation.”

Salah’s speech also attacked Jews, saying, “They want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks. Our blood has passed from one ‘general terrorist’ to another ‘general terrorist.'” He also said, “We are not those who ate bread dipped in children’s blood.”

Raed Salah Gives Lecture at Haifa U.

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Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is not-for-profit [501 (C) (3)], grass-roots community of scholars who have united to promote honest, fact-based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues. We believe that ethnic, national, and religious hatreds, including anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, have no place in our institutions, disciplines, and communities. We employ academic means to address these issues.

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