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Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr: Against any foreign influence
Photo: Alaa al-Marjani/ REUTERS
The people of Iraq are now banned from any connection with Israel and its people.
Contacts can be punished with life imprisonment or even death.
The Iraqi parliament decided on Thursday.
All MPs present approved the draft law against a "normalization" of relations with Israel, as reported by the state agency INA.
The law doesn't just apply to Iraqis at home and abroad.
Foreign institutions, companies and private individuals operating in Iraq can also be punished for any contact with Israelis.
The influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his supporters to celebrate on the country's streets after the vote.
Al-Sadr's bloc won the most seats in last October's early parliamentary elections, despite voter turnout at an all-time low of 42 percent.
According to media reports, it was his bloc that introduced the bill to parliament.
The former militia leader al-Sadr rejects any foreign influence in the oil-rich but politically and economically crisis-ridden country.
He is known for both his hostility to the US and his protest against growing Iranian influence in Iraq.
Last fall, 300 people from Iraq called for normalization of relations with Israel at a conference in the Kurdish autonomous regions.
The government then took legal action against a number of participants.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain had previously established diplomatic ties with Israel.
Morocco and Sudan also announced that they would normalize their relations with Israel.
Anti-Semitism is rampant in Iraq.
Only a handful of Jews live in the country today.
The vast majority left Iraq after the founding of Israel.
pbe/dpa