On June 30, DEFEND JERUSALEM petitioned Advocate Nurit Litman, the deputy state attorney in charge of special tasks in the Justice Ministry, regarding the urgent matter of Hanadi al-Halawani, a senior leader in the Jerusalem-based Murabitat organization and a dangerous individual whose actions and intentions pose a clear and present danger to the security of the State of Israel. Al-Halawani is a resident of Israel and well-known to the security services for her pro-terrorist activities.
The Murabitat is an organized militant group of Muslim women that operates on the Temple Mount and its surrounding areas—especially the Old City. The Murabitat’s goals are violence and the subversion of law and order in the Israeli capital. Al-Halawani and her cohorts engage in a relentless campaign of incitement against Jews and the Israeli police, violent disturbances, and any hostile activity that can lead to bloodshed and the collapse of law and order in Jerusalem. She and her group of militants have been responsible for numerous criminal and terrorist acts that have resulted in casualties.
Although she has been arrested numerous times and has a criminal/security office rap sheet that is as thick as a phonebook, al-Halawani goes out of her way to promote the attacks and incidents she has provoked in the premeditated sabotage of Israeli sovereignty in the capital. In many cases, al-Halwani was released from custody on strict and binding conditions that she refrain from engaging in future subversive and terrorist activity, though she thumbed her nose at the courts on each occasion, making a mockery of the benevolence of the Israeli judiciary: one condition, for example, was that she was forbidden from entering the Temple Mount, but she continued to rally illegal activities from that very location. Much of what she does is meant solely for propaganda—appearing in choreographed interviews for networks such as Al-Jazeera and other Middle Eastern networks and online platforms. The media attention—and even the arrests—only enhance her online presence, her self-inflated sense of stardom, and her brazen disregard for Israeli law and the safety of Israel’s citizens.
To the best of DEFEND JERUSALEM’s knowledge, despite her offenses and despite the precarious security situation in Jerusalem that erupted into violence in May during Ramadan that can be attributed to Hanadi al-Halawani and the provocative actions of her and her group, the Israeli security services have not made stopping her a priority. It is unacceptable and untenable that the State of Israel has gone out of its way to treat her with far more benevolence than it does to Jewish activists. But although Israeli authorities have exercised an overabundance of patience and tolerance regarding her incitement, it is a national security imperative that al-Halawani’s campaign of media-promoted violence must come to an immediate end.
