Ben-Gvir Orders Police to Block Islamic Calls to Prayer Over Loudspeakers

Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir leads a meeting of his Otzma Yehudit Party faction at the Knesset, Feb. 5, 2024.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir instructed the Israel Police to prevent mosques from broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers, he confirmed in a statement posted to X on Sunday.

“I have received dozens of complaints from residents in mixed [Jewish-Arab] cities,” Ben-Gvir said in the statement. He added, “As they do in Europe, as they do in every civilized country in the world, as they do in Arab countries, we also need to address the issue of noise from mosques.”

“Ahmad Tibi, Ayman Odeh and Mansour Abbas—do not threaten violence against the State of Israel,” the police minister warned, addressing fierce criticism from leading Israeli Muslim lawmakers.

According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 on Saturday night, Ben-Gvir’s new policy would allow police officers to enter mosques and confiscate loudspeaker equipment. The mosques would also be fined.

The Channel 12 News report cited leaders of Israel’s Arab community as threatening “unrest and even riots” in response to the minister’s move.

Supporters of the decision say the Muslim call to prayer diminishes the quality of life of nearby residents of all faiths—including some Arabs—who are not interested in the five-times-a-day ritual, particularly the midnight and pre-dawn calls that often wake adults and small children.

A 2016 proposal to limit the volume of the Adhan call to prayer has been making its way through the Knesset following initial opposition from then-Health Minister Yaakov Litzman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party, who worried that it could limit the volume of a weekly siren on Fridays that signals the beginning of Shabbat.

The legislation currently under consideration would limit the time of day and volume that Israeli mosques can use for their calls to prayer.

In 2018, a German court ruled to silence loudspeaker calls to prayer from a mosque that was disturbing non-Muslim residents. The Christian plaintiffs argued that “the Adhan contains phrases like, ‘Allah is great. I testify that there is no deity but Allah.’ This is an exclusively Islamic claim at the expense of other religions.”