Israel Charges Imam With Incitement Against Pope

Israel, that’s the country with all the Joooos that has Ahmadinejad so upset all the time, just gave him more reason to be upset.

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.”

The imam was arrested after one of the murderers of a Israeli cab driver said he was motivated in part by Salim.

During a 2009 visit to the city by the Pope, Salim and his followers hung up a banner saying “He is not welcome here.”

His followers then collected weapons with which to kill the Pope, and some Jews of course.