A leading Israeli Arab Muslim cleric said at the weekend that the Jewish state will very soon cease to exist and the whole of the country will come under Sharia (strict Islamic) law as another piece in the puzzle to reconstituting the Islamic Caliphate.

In an interview with a local Arabic-language newspaper, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of northern Israel's Islamic Movement, insisted that the world is "on the threshold of a new era. The future belongs to Islam and the Muslims."

Khatib said that in preparation for the coming Islamic takeover, Muslims who hold Israeli citizenship like himself should begin to actively rebel against the state by refusing to cooperate with and forming alternatives to the Israeli authorities.

Also at the weekend, Khatib's boss, Sheikh Raed Salah denounced current peace negotiations leading to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict as an "evil Israeli scheme." Salah, who is also an Israeli citizen, has long maintained that that Muslim world must not recognize Israel's right to exist.