A controversial bill to limit the volume of Muslim calls to prayer from mosques across Israel pits freedom of religious expression against the right to be protected from unwanted religious intimidation.
The bills supporters contend that the noise of the calls negatively affects the quality of life of nearby residents of all faiths, including some Muslims, that are not interested in the five-times-a-day ritual, particularly the midnight and pre-dawn calls that often wake adults and small children. Opponents of the bill suggest that the measure was offered specifically to discriminate against mosques.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who supports the bill, told his cabinet members that Israel “is a country that respects freedom of religion for all faiths,” but is also “committed to defending those who suffer from the loudness of the excessive noise of the announcements.” Netanyahu noted that the volume of the prayer calls is restricted or totally silenced “in many European cities and in many places in the Islamic world. I support similar legislation and enforcement in the state of Israel.”
Dr. Reuven Berko, a former colonel in the Israel Police and former adviser on Arab affairs for the Jerusalem Police Department, shared that the desire for a reduction of mosque noise, particularly at night, is something in common between Arabs and Israelis. “Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, people all over the country object to it,” Berko stated. “They do not want these disturbances. There are a lot of noise complaints. Muslims often come to Israeli police officers to complain about the mosque calls at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Muslims who do not personally heed the prayer calls typically suffer the most because they normally live closer to the mosques than Christians or Jews. At the same time, the calls are regularly heard deep into adjacent Jewish neighborhoods, causing unwanted noise pollution for Jewish residents.
Berko believes the current proposal could be interpreted the wrong way as a religious battle between Judaism and Islam by intentionally restricting the “voice of Islam to express itself.” Berko rejects the need for a new law specifically targeting the mosques, saying that “there is already a law on the books in Israel which enables law enforcement to limit volume according to decibel levels. Passing a new law does not improve the ability of law enforcement to enforce it. Whether it is a discotheque or a mosque, there is a practical way to deal with the issue that does not discriminate by religion.”
Itamar Marcus, founder of Palestinian Media Watch (a group that monitors public incitement against Jews) said any law limiting or banning a mosque’s loud calls “is not an imposition on someone’s freedom of religion.” He said the current bill is meant to directly counter the intent of the loudspeakers “to create a presence and dominance of the mosque in the community.”
The loud call five times a day “serves a very strong message to the people that the mosque is calling residents to prayer, whether they want it or not,” Marcus stated. “Mosques can do whatever they want as long as they are not disturbing other people. Nobody should impose on anybody else what prayers they should hear.”
Besides the five-times-daily prayer calls, many mosques increase the calls’ volume during the Friday mid-morning prayer and then broadcast the imam’s lengthy sermon via the loudspeaker. Such sermons have been censured for anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric. “What we see from the sermons that are broadcast on Palestinian television is that there are often calls to incitement,” said Marcus, noting that a “sermon broadcast just a few months ago called on Allah to count the Jews to the last one, and kill them to the last one.”
“If you broadcast the calls to prayer, and worshipers enter your mosque, you can stand on the pulpit and preach to whoever chooses to come to the mosque and listen,” he said. “But if you preach to an entire community, and even to a neighboring Jewish community over the loudspeakers, this is a true provocation.”
Originally posted at JNS.
