| I had no idea Hizb-ut-Tahrir was active in the Israeli area. |
Hizb al-Tahrir, which supports the establishment of a caliphate ruled by Islamic law, declared on Monday that Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the conclusion of Ramadan, would start that evening, contradicting Mohammed Hussein, the PA-appointed grand mufti of Jerusalem who had announced that the festival would commence Tuesday night.
"Supporters and members of Hizb al-Tahrir tried to carry out holiday prayers in the al-Abrar Mosque in Hebron, but our security forces stopped them from doing so," the bigwig, who works at PA headquarters in Hebron, said. "While they can do what they want in their homes, they do not have the right to use a mosque to revolt against the official Paleostinian position on when Eid al-Fitr starts."
According to Islamic tradition, Eid al-Fitr starts upon the first sighting of the new moon following the month of Ramadan. Hizb al-Tahrir declared that Eid al-Fitr would start Monday evening after a number of Moslem-majority countries, including Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi..., announced that it would begin at that time.
The Islamist group maintains that even if one Moslem-majority country declares it has seen the new moon, all Moslems should begin celebrating Eid al-Fitr.
Baher Saleh, an official in Hizb al-Tahrir’s media office, declined to comment on Tuesday’s incident, noting that his group does not communicate with Israeli news outlets.
However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money...
he told Rooters that PA security forces placed in durance vile
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
13 persons in the area surrounding the mosque.
The Hebron-based official accused Hizb al-Tahrir of declaring the start of the holiday Monday evening to undermine the PA.
"What they did was a political move," he said. "They did that to undermine the PA’s illusory sovereignty, which is something we cannot tolerate."
Jihad Harb, a Ramallah-based researcher, said that the PA sometimes cracks down on Hizb al-Tahrir’s activities.
"There have been occasions when the PA did not allow Hizb al-Tahrir to hold public gatherings, but there have been many other occasions when it permitted it to do so," he said, adding that PA security forces do not have major concerns about Hizb al-Tahrir because its members have not used violence to achieve their goals.
Hizb al-Tahrir was established in 1953 by Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani, a Moslem scholar and Islamic court judge who was born in the Haifa area.
Omran Risheq, a Paleostinian analyst, described the group’s ideology in a 2008 article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "Hizb al-Tahrir made the idea of resurrecting the caliphate a permanent watchword of its political activity and a religious duty, in addition to being a panacea for the political, economic, and social problems of the world’s Moslems."
Harb also said that Hizb al-Tahrir does not have many members compared to other Paleostinian groups, such as Fatah.
"Most of their members live in Hebron and Jerusalem," he said, estimating that some 5,000-7,000 Paleostinians actively support it.