Muting mosque bill gets initial thumbs up

A law to muffle mosques’ amplified calls to prayer in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem won preliminary approval on Wednesday in a charged parliamentary session where Palestinian legislators denounced the measure as racist. The bill passed a preliminary reading with 55 votes in favour and 48 against as the assembly broke out into chaotic arguments. […]

A law to muffle mosques’ amplified calls to prayer in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem won preliminary approval on Wednesday in a charged parliamentary session where Palestinian legislators denounced the measure as racist.
The bill passed a preliminary reading with 55 votes in favour and 48 against as the assembly broke out into chaotic arguments.
Zuheir Bahloul, a Palestinian member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, called the bill “a declaration of war… between sanity and racism” against Israel’s Palestinian minority.
Palestinian lawmaker Ahmed Tibi told supporters of the legislation they were “committing a racist act”.
Ayman Odeh, a member of the Joint List – a political bloc of parties representing Israel’s Palestinian minorities – was escorted out of the assembly hall after he stood up and ripped a copy of the bill into pieces.