“The Paris attacks provided the Cabinet with the support it needed to outlaw [the northern branch of] the Islamic Movement,” said a senior Likud minister, explaining the timing of a decision after it had been postponed repeatedly over the past few weeks. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he added, “As soon as the scope of the Paris attacks became clear, it was obvious that this was the right time. The whole world was reeling from Islamic terror. Moves of that sort have legitimacy, and the focus would be less on us now.” According to him, the move was a necessary one. “It is just too bad we didn’t do it earlier,” he said.

From the moment that details about the events in Paris came out Nov. 13, it was only a matter of time until Israeli politicians on the right, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would use the bloody attacks to promote their narrative. Outlawing the northern branch of the Islamic Movement was a move directly connected, time-wise, to the effects of the Paris attacks. The international press was focused on events in Europe, French fighter jets were bombing Islamic State territories, and the Americans were actively involved in destroying the group’s oil tankers. Given this mood, the Security Cabinet could take certain steps that it ordinarily could not without provoking a powerful international response against Israel. Even the Zionist Camp fell in line. Its leaders, Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, both supported the decision.

Israel’s Islamic Movement is a religious and political organization that was founded in the 1970s to bring Israel’s Arab citizens closer to Islam. There was an ideological rift in the movement in the 1990s, while the Oslo process was underway. As a result, the movement split into the more radical northern branch, which opposed the Oslo Accord and established ties with Hamas, and the southern branch, which is considered more pragmatic and moderate. Some in Israel claim that the northern branch is one of the major contributors to the current wave of violence that erupted on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Even before making their decision about the Islamic Movement, just hours after the attacks in Paris took place, the leaders of the Israeli right released statements linking the tragedy in the French capital to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That the incident in Paris came during a wave of Palestinian terrorism in Israel made it possible for them to argue that “we’re all in the same boat” in the struggle against Islamic terror.