JERUSALEM // Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he backed a draft bill limiting the volume of calls to prayer from mosques, a proposal that government watchdogs have called a threat to religious freedom.
Israeli media reported that the bill would stop the use of public address systems for calls to prayer.
“I cannot count the times – they are simply too numerous – that citizens have turned to me from all parts of Israeli society, from all religions, with complaints about the noise and suffering caused them by the excessive noise coming to them from the public address systems of houses of prayer,” Mr Netanyahu said.
While the bill applies to all houses of worship, it is seen as specifically targeting mosques.
Israel’s population is roughly 17.5 per cent Palestinian, most of whom are Muslim, and they accuse the Jewish majority of discriminating against them.
The Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, has spoken out against the proposal.
On Sunday, one of the watchdog’s officials accused Israel’s right-wing politicians of dangerously using the issue to gain political points under the guise of improving quality of life.
Nasreen Hadad Haj-Yahya wrote in Israeli newspaper Maariv that "the real aim" of the bill "is not to prevent noise, but rather to create noise that will hurt all of society and the efforts to establish a sane reality between Jews and Arabs."
* Agence France-Presse
