The reason? Because on Friday, he accused the government of colluding with Jews during a sermon.
Sakr said, "The Palestinian Authority coordinates security, serves the occupation, pursues the mujahideen, and hands over wanted persons [to Israel] and is not ashamed of that. It is also not ashamed when it offers its services in settling matters after the war."
He continued, "They will enter Gaza if the Jewish entity allows them, with the permission of the Jews and under the protection of the Jewish soldiers, to confirm that the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian organization are the ones with authority and responsibility over the entire land of the State of Palestine. What cleverness and stupidity is this?"
As soon as this speech was spread on social media, Muhammad Sakr was arrested by the PA.
I have no doubt that the sheikh is a terrorist supporter. But this sort of repression of free speech is an everyday occurrence under Palestinian Authority rule - the people that the West wants to take over Gaza.
And no one, besides those who support Hamas, seem to have a problem with this.
The media needs to simplify everything into a binary of "good guys" and "bad guys" because they consider their audience to be too stupid to understand that often the "good guys" are bad as well. Activists understand this well, and do everything possible to tar Israel as the "bad guy" in every possible fashion, which makes Palestinians the "good guys."
No one wants to mention that Israel would never arrest a preacher unless he directly incites violence. Direct comparisons of rights and laws and reality are to be avoided at all costs.
Stories like this that show that even the "good" Palestinians are worse than any conceivable Israeli action never see the light of day because the narrative is more important than the truth.
