After months of debate, the city of Tel Aviv agreed Sunday to name a square in Yafo after a senior member of the Islamic Movement. The square is to be named for Sheikh Bassam Abu Zayid, who died in 2008.
Following Zayid's death, Tel Aviv city council member Ahmed Mashrawi pushed for public recognition of the sheikh. Mashrawi, a member of Meretz, quit his position over the issue.
The Islamic Movement is the Israeli branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its members refer to their movement as the “Inner Palestine” branch. The Islamic Movement is divided into the Northern and Southern divisions; the northern Islamic Movement is led by the notoriously extremist Sheikh Raed Abu Salah, who has been arrested multiple times for incitement to violence and was on the Gaza flotilla.
Sheikh Zayid was a relatively moderate member of the group, who focused on increasing religious observance among Muslim youth.
Mashrawi told Ynet that he was pleased by the decision to honor Zayid. The sheikh “was popular among Jewish circles as well, because he always preached moderation and coexistence,” he said.
While approving of the decision to honor Zayid, Mashrawi criticized the city for the number of streets in Yafo named after Jews, saying that the presence of many streets with Jewish names in majority-Arab neighborhoods is “absurd.”