1. ENGLISH 3 READING
NEW STORIES
ISRAEL CHARGES IMAM WITH INCITEMENT AGAINST POPE
FROM : EURONEWS, 7.11.2010
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli authorities have charged
the imam of a mosque in Nazareth with inciting
violence against Pope Benedict and supporting al
Qaeda and “global jihad,” the justice ministry said
Sunday.
The indictment said Nazim Mahmoud Salim, who was
arrested by police a month ago, led a group of about
2,000 worshippers, and had also preached at the
flashpoint al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third
holiest shrine.
Salim is charged with inciting violence against Pope
Benedict during his visit last year to Nazareth, the town
of Jesus’ boyhood in the heartland of Israel’s minority
Arab population.
In his sermons and on his website over the past
decade, the indictment said, Salim preached “an
ideological world view identical to that of global jihad”
and wrote “publications that supported and identified
with the terror organisation al Qaeda.”
It said Salim’s teachings inspired attacks against Jews
and Christians, including the murder of one Jew.
At the time of Pope Benedict’s visit to the Holy Land in
May 2009, the indictment quotes Salim as saying in a
sermon at al Aqsa: “The pope prepares himself at the
gate of the Vatican and at the head of a crusade against
1

2. ENGLISH 3 READING
NEW STORIES
26
27
28
29
30
31
the Islamic world … we will expel the pope from
Nazareth.”
Salim is being held by authorities until the end of the
proceedings, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman said.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Editing by Mark
Trevelyan)
TEXT : http://www.euronews.net/newswires/574277-israel-charges-imam-with-incitement-against-pope
2