ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday said that his bloc intends to introduce a bill criminalizing the normalization of relations with Israel, following a series of Trump administration-brokered talks that saw numerous Muslim countries normalize ties with the Jewish state.
Sadr said that the "issue of normalization and Israeli ambitions to dominate our beloved Iraq" was one of the core reasons that got the Sadrist Movement involved with the electoral process again.
"The Sadrist bloc and its allies ... will soon announce a draft project to criminalize normalization and dealing with the Zionist entity at all," he said in a tweet.
The normalization of ties with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords is a US-led joint Middle East peace initiative. Four countries – the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Bahrain, and Morocco – have announced normalization agreements with Israel, with America's support.
Sadr added that once his bloc proposes the bill, it will be passed to the parliament for voting. It is noteworthy that the cleric's bloc emerged as the largest party of the October elections, securing 73 parliamentary seats.
A conference advocating for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords was held in the Kurdistan Region's capital of Erbil in September and was attended by more than 300 Sunnis and Shiites from across the country.
Widespread condemnation from Baghdad and Erbil struck the conference, with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi calling it "illegal" and saying that the concept of normalization with Israel is illegal as per the Iraqi constitution.
Sadr also expressed staunch rejection of the conference. He said Erbil "must forbid such terrorist Zionist meetings" and called on the Iraqi government to arrest all who attended, otherwise threatening to take action himself.
"We shall take responsibility for what must be done according to Sharia," he tweeted at the time, referring to laws derived from Islamic teachings.
Days after, an Iraqi court issued arrest warrants for three people accused of participating in the conference.
A large population of Jews used to call Iraq home. In 1941, the Farhud, a violent pogrom, marked the beginning of the end of one of Iraq's oldest communities. A decade after the anti-Semitic violence of the Farhud, more than 120,000 Jews were airlifted out of Iraq in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.
