WATCH: Israeli Islamist leader says Jerusalem will be capital of Islamic Caliphate
He also claimed that Islamic State "is a small group created by the West as a pretext to come to the Islamic countries of the East."
By JPOST.COM STAFFIsraeli Islamist leader says Jerusalem will be capital of Islamic Caliphate
Sheik Kamal Khatib, deputy leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, expressed hopes that Jerusalem will not just be the capital of a Palestinian state, but the head of the Islamic Caliphate, in an interview with the official PA TV channel, translated by MEMRI. The interviewer asked Khatib whether he was referring to the caliphate that Islamic State is working to establish in Iraq and Syria.Khatib later clarified what he meant, saying, "The prophet Muhammad said that the Islamic Caliphate will encompass the entire earth.""The whole earth?" asked the visibly surprised interviewer."Yes, the whole world," responded Khaled, but adding that this did not necessarily mean that Islam would be imposed on people in the West.Khatib also claimed that Islamic State "is a small group created by the West as a pretext to come to the Islamic countries of the East."After repeating his views several times that "the entire Earth" would "become subordinate to the Islamic caliphate one day", PA TV cut the interview short, and switched to a picture of the Aksa Mosque with lite music in the background.In May, The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) arrested a senior Hamas operative at the Allenby Bridge, who revealed during his interrogation that Hamas uses the Islamic Movement in Israel as a front to advance its activities and goals in Jerusalem.The operative, Mahmoud Toama, is a member of Hamas's General Shura Council, headed by Khaled Mashaal, which is the body responsible for making all of the organization's policy decisions in all fields, including military decisions, according to the Shin Bet.