Hamas: Government control over West Bank mosques is 'war on religion'

A Hamas leader in Gaza accused the rival Palestinian government in the West Bank on Tuesday of launching a religious war by exerting control over mosques there.

	Gazan Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh waves to Palestinian brides and grooms during a mass wedding ceremony in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

The government of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has gradually banned all but government-sanctioned officials from preaching or giving religious lessons in the West Bank. It says this keeps militant groups like Hamas from recruiting.

The breakout of such a dispute during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan shows how religion has become a new front in the battle between the rival Palestinian governments.

Each has ruled only its own territory since the Islamic militant Hamas seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to Abbas in 2007, leaving him governing only the West Bank. Since then, Hamas in Gaza has raised the profile of religion in public life, while Abbas' government has sought to lower it.

At a news conference on Sunday, the Palestinian Authority's religious affairs minister, Ibrahim Habbash, said that since the start of the year the government has imposed control on all West Bank mosques, preventing anyone not authorized by the government to preach or give religious lessons.

"This prevents militant groups like Hamas from using mosques to recruit new members," he said. It also allows the government to unify the message of Islam, which is moderate and unifying.

Habbash also defended a recent decision to stop mosques from broadcasting Quran recitations from their minarets before the call to prayer.

"The Quran should be listened to when recited, and we know that people are busy with the business of daily life and won't give their ears to what is coming from the mosques' loudspeakers," he said.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh blasted the moves in a statement on Tuesday, saying they amounted to a "religious war designed to strike at religious belief among the Palestinian people and implement an American-Zionist plot using Palestinian hands."

"They will not strip religion from the hearts of mankind and they will not succeed in their war against Islam because it is a war with God," the statement said.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on Arab and Muslim countries to boycott the Palestinian Authority for its war on religion.