Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has directed police to ban mosques from playing the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer, claiming it “disturbs” Jewish residents.
He has instructed authorities to confiscate loudspeakers and fine mosques for playing the call, which lasts about two minutes.
Ben-Gvir defended the move as necessary to combat “unreasonable noise” and lawlessness.
In an interview with Channel 12, Ben Gvir said that he was “proud” to move forward with a policy of “stopping unreasonable noise from mosques and other sources that has become a hazard for Israel’s residents”.
“In our debates, it arose that most western countries, and even some Arab countries, limit the noise and have many laws on the matter. It’s only neglected in Israel,” Ben Gvir’s office said in a statement.
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In a post on X, he called the adhan a “hazard” to nearby Israelis. Palestinian citizens of Israel, however, view the ban as a provocative attack on their community and religious rights.
Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List, condemned the decision, accusing Ben Gvir of fuelling divisions and targeting mosques after failing to provoke violence at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, which he has visited and called for Jewish prayer in highly inflammatory moves.
“Ben Gvir is constantly trying to sabotage coexistence,” Abbas wrote on X.
Human rights advocates and Palestinian mayors have denounced the ban as another discriminatory move by Israel’s far-right government.
‘A war on Islam and Christianity’
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned the prayer call ban.
“Attacks on mosques, churches, cultural sites, and religious texts are all part of the decades-long Israeli campaign to erase Palestinian culture,” said Nihal Awad, the national executive director of CAIR.
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“A war on Islam and Christianity has always been a major component of the far-right Israeli government’s genocide targeting the Palestinian people.”
Awad criticised US President Joe Biden for “enabling the suppression of religious liberties” through his support for the Israeli government.
Ben Gvir has a history of opposing the Islamic call to prayer. In 2013, long before assuming office, Ben Gvir and a group of far-right activists disrupted residents of the Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Ramat Aviv by blasting the adhan through loudspeakers.
The stunt, they claimed, was meant to highlight how other communities in Israel are “disturbed” by the call to prayer.
Efforts to restrict the adhan have also surfaced in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. In 2017, the so-called “muezzin bill”, which sought to limit the use of loudspeakers for religious purposes, passed an initial vote but ultimately stalled.
