Qods in flames, whither Muslim conscience?

As clashes continue in and around the sacred al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas between the oppressed Palestinians and the illegal Zionist entity, the toll of martyrs is rising amongst the Muslim worshippers, amid the deafening silence of international circles.

Now we have the viewpoint column in this regard that appeared in Iran’s English language daily “Kayhan International” written by S. Nawabzadeh and titled “Qods in flames, whither Muslim conscience?”

Bayt al-Moqaddas is in flames, but the conscience of the regimes, especially the Arab potentates whose spurious fiefdoms were created by the British and who owe their power to the Americans, remains frozen.

Palestinian Muslims are courting martyrdom almost every day in the occupied Islamic city in defence of the sanctity of al-Aqsa Mosque (Islam’s former qibla or focal point of the daily ritual prayer), but the self-styled advocates of human rights in the West, remain indifferent to their plight and the desecration of their religious sites by the Godless Zionists.

Friday, July 21, was a Day of Rage in Islam’s Third Holiest City, as people from almost all over Occupied Palestine assembled at the Haram ash-Sharif to protest the restrictions placed by the usurpers of their homeland on their right to pray without any inhibitions, but the so-called international media instead of highlighting their grievances, tried to portray them as ‘violent’ and ‘extremist’, while defending those who have continued to trample upon them in the most merciless manner ever since the illegitimate birth of Israel on Palestinian soil in 1948 on the flimsy basis of the myth of the holocaust.

The daily was referring to the illegal action of the occupiers in installing electronic gates at the holy site and barring Muslims under 50-years of age from converging on al-Aqsa for the ritual prayers. This is indeed a gross violation of international laws and the birthrights of a nation.

Kayhan said in its viewpoint: It is indeed a grave injustice of the modern world that the land of Palestine and the people of Palestine have been made to suffer because of a fiction weaved in Europe by the victors of World War 2.

If some Jews were killed by the Nazis in Germany, Austria and Poland – which is not a new occurrence in view of Christendom’s long history of periodical massacres of Jews for their slandering of the Messiah and his Virgin Mother Mary (peace upon them), ‘Zionistan’ should have been set up somewhere in Europe.

Why was the cancerous tumour Israel planted on Palestinian soil when the Zionists, whose ancestors were East European Khazar converts to Judaism, have not even the remotest connection to the ancient Israelites, who in the course of time had become followers of Jesus and later evolved into devout Arabicized Muslims as Islam liberated the Levant from Byzantine or the Eastern Roman Empire?

As a matter of fact, today most Palestinian Muslims and Christians proudly trace their lineage to the Prophets David, Solomon and others, while the Zionist occupiers have neither such pedigrees nor Israelite blood in their veins; therefore they lack any legitimacy for either their illegal stay in Palestine or the unjustified existence of the non-entity called Israel.

In view of these realities, it is time for world Muslims, as well as conscientious Christians and others, to launch a global campaign for the end of Israel and restoration of Palestine to the Palestinians.

Other than this, there is no solution to this chronic question and no superpower or world body can end this tragedy, which in its latest phase, the start of the Bayt al-Moqaddas Intefadha in October 2015, has so far claimed the life of over 300 Palestinian men, women, and children – in addition to the mounting toll in the Gaza Strip because of the periodic bombardment by Zionist aircraft and artillery.

On Friday, rallies were held in many world cities in support of the oppressed Palestinians in the ongoing confrontation – a reflection of the foresight of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (God bless him), in designating the Last Friday of the Blessed Month of Ramadhan as World Qods Day for eventual liberation of Bayt al-Moqaddas.

There were also words of inspiration from Leader of the popular Ansarallah Movement of Yemen, Seyyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who despite being under intense bombardment of the past two-and-a-half years by US-backed Saudi Arabia, not just expressed support for the Palestinian people but pledged to send forces in response to the recent statement of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary of Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, Hezbollah, for mobilizing tens of thousands of fighters from all over the world for the liberation of Palestine.

It has happened twice before in history when Qods and Palestine were freed from European Crusader occupation by multi-ethnic Muslim armies, and there is no reason why it should not happen again.

The writer of the column was referring to the liberation of Qods and Palestine in 1187 AD by a united Muslim army of Kurds, Turks, Arabs and Iranians, led by Salah od-Din Ayyoubi after 88 years of occupation by the Crusaders, who were allowed to leave for their native Europe in peace, in sharp contrast to their massacre of 70,000 Muslim men, women, and children in 1099 when they occupied the holy Muslim land.

The last of the crusaders in Syria and Palestine were weeded out in 1291 by the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, which means that the present 69-year Zionist occupation of Palestine could be ended once and for all if the Muslims knit ranks.

Kayhan continued: But expect neither simple rifles nor cartridges from Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf comrades-in-crimes who purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of American weapons for arming terrorists, suppressing citizens and bombing fellow Muslims.

There seems to be no substitute for armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine, especially since the UN has turned a deaf ear to the rational solution proposed by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, for holding a democratic referendum involving all original inhabitants of Palestine – Muslims, Christians and the Jewish minority, but not the illegal Zionist settlers – for a single state under a single government stretching from River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and from the borders of Lebanon in the north to Egypt’s Sinai in the south.

In the meantime, reaffirming our solidarity with the protest gatherings at the al-Aqsa Mosque, we call on UNESCO, which last May declared Bayt al-Moqaddas as world heritage site and ruled Israel’s jurisdiction over it as null and void, to prevent the collapse of the present structure built in 1035 by the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’a Muslim caliph of Egypt, Ali az-Zaher, by pressuring the Zionist entity from weakening its foundations as a result of the tunnel they have dug underneath and in which in June terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu held a provocative cabinet meeting.      

AS/ME