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Zionism must be abolished if real peace is ever to have a chance, By Khalid Amayreh

Sailanmuslim — Sat, 22 May 2010 01:20:15 +0000

Nakba-62: we will not forget, we will not forgive

“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Hunefis, and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that didn’t have a former Arab population.”

Moshe Dayan, during an address to the Technion, Haifa , reported in Ha’aretz, April 1969

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of changes in the air- however slight-lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” William O. Douglas.

As a Palestinian who has been living under the yoke of Israeli military occupation for over 43 years and who lost three innocent uncles and several other relatives, in addition to tens of thousands of my people to Zionist bullets and other tools of death, I should have no problems comparing Israel with Nazi Germany.

It is true that Israel has not introduced gas chambers into Palestinian towns and villages. (Gas chambers were not the main method of killing in Nazi Germany). However, Israel has been killing and tormenting Palestinians unceasingly in a variety of ways that, in their brutality and sheer evil, don’t really differ in substance from Nazi behavior.

Moreover, it is important to remember that the German Holocaust didn’t begin with actual abominable crimes such as Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, but rather with an idea, with a book and with a Kristallnacht, the sort of things that are so rampant in Israel’s collective thinking these days as the Israeli Jewish society continues to drift menacingly towards religious and secular fascism.

Indeed, any honest comparison between Israeli behavior and Nazi acts and behavior would reveal the striking similarity between Zionist and Nazi thinking.

The manifestly racist public discourse in Israel is an expression of a society that is poisoned by fascist thinking, a society without a moral or even a human compass. Fortunately, several Israeli intellectuals, such as former Knesset Speaker Abraham Burg, have spoken elaborately about the growing dearth of humanity and morality in Israel. However, instead of paying attention to these conscientious voices, the bulk of the Israeli society continues to slide toward the fascist abyss, which is more or less the same path that Germany faced prior to the Second World War.

This is not liberal Zionism giving way to religious Zionism as some Israeli and pro-Israeli apologists would argue. There is simply no such a thing as liberal Zionism or democratic Zionism or even human Zionism, just as there was no such a thing as liberal Nazism or democratic Nazism or human Nazism. These are stark contradictions in terms.

Indeed, the moment a Zionist Jew sets foot in Palestine and accepts, enthusiastically as is usually the case, to live on a piece of land seized or effectively stolen from its rightful proprietors and to live in a house seized at gunpoint from its native Palestinian owners, this Zionist Jew loses his humanity and becomes an evil person, knowingly or unknowingly. We all know that there were millions of people in Germany and other European countries who didn’t actually commit direct crimes such as murdering innocent people. But they did provide the “human” basis for Nazi criminality and their silence, tacit or explicit approval, was conducive to making the general Nazi discourse acquire a certain rationality if not legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

Zionism, we are told, is about ‘building a national homeland for the Jews.’ However, for millions of its victims, Zionism is a project of dispossession, it is about the uprooting, expulsion and dispersion of the bulk of the Palestinian people from their ancestral homeland to the four corners of the world by way of organized terror and violence. Indeed, Zionism has always been clear about one thing: The Palestinians would have to leave by ‘hook or by crook.’ And there is ample historical evidence to support this fact.

This is the evil side of Zionism that much of the West doesn’t want to recognize or even know about..

From its very inception, Zionism viewed Palestine as a land without a people for a people without a land. This arrogant denial of the Palestinian people’s very existence didn’t originate in ignorance of reality. It was rather an expression of virulent and violent racism, very much like those white European barbarians who exterminated untold millions of indigenous Americans and called the genocide ‘Manifest Destiny.’

The Zionists did know that Palestine was populated by hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims.

In 1897 two Austrian rabbis visiting Palestine to assess the feasibility of making it a Jewish state, sent a pithy telegram summing up the situation. “The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man.”

That ‘other man’ was none other than the Palestinian Arab nation, long established as a political entity.

Yet, the Zionist movement insisted with unflinching determination on wresting the bride from her lawful husband.

That was a sheer act of rape, it still is an act of rape and will always be an act of rape, no matter how much the myth is glorified and the mythmakers are celebrated. Needless to say, this act of rape has no moral legitimacy, and never will. It has no right to exist, and never will. How can an act of rape and theft acquire legitimacy. Does a theft become legitimate after the passage of 62 years?

This is, of course, unless the system of “right and wrong” upon which human existence is supposed to be based is decimated into smithereens and morphed into another system based on the laws of the jungle.

In 1948, the forces of Zionist terror ethnically cleansed more than 90% of Palestinians in pre-1967 Palestine, banishing them to the four winds. Now, they are dreaming or probably planning to do it again, and they want to ‘transfer’ millions of Palestinians to ‘the desert’ in order to maintain Israel’s pure Jewish identity and have more ‘Lebensraum’ for ‘God’s chosen people.’

Yes, despite the passage of nearly sixty years of ‘Jewish Statehood,’ Israel’s undeclared but ultimate goal remains the expulsion of most or all Palestinians from the area extending from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

Indeed, any casual observer of the Israeli media will be affronted, nearly on a daily basis, by remarks and statements by Israeli officials, including Knesset members and cabinet ministers, calling for ‘transferring’ the Palestinians, not only from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, but also from Israel.

‘Transfer’ is not an innocent term. It is no less than a euphemism for genocide, at least a partial genocide, since it is almost impossible to effect the wholesale removal and ethnic cleansing of millions of people from their motherland without resorting to mass murder and mass terror.

Well, was not this the method used quite liberally by the legions of Zionism to force the bulk of the Palestinian people to flee their hometowns and villages in 1948? Didn’t Menachem Begin (may he rot in hell) in his book ‘The Revolt’ refer to the Deir Yassin Massacre as a miracle because it made hundreds of thousands of terror-stricken Palestinians flee in fear?

It is imperative that we call the spade a spade, especially when in the hands of our gravediggers. The Zionists are comparable to Nazis because their actions and behavior are comparable and similar to Nazi actions and behavior, and if Nazi actions and behavior were decidedly nefarious as they indeed were, then by the same token we must apply the same standards to the Nazis of our time. In the final analysis, when Zionist Jews think, behave and act like the Nazis of yesterday, they do become Nazis of today. No special treatment ought to be given to them. Right is right and wrong is wrong.

Indeed, just as the Nazis sought to obliterate Jews as a people, the Zionists have been seeking to obliterate the Palestinians as a people. This is more than Golda Meir saying dismissively “what Palestinians?”!! Or some Israeli officials referring to us contemptuously as ‘Never-landers.’ The systematic destruction of some 460 Palestinian towns and villages by Israel (1948-52) was a Nazi act of the highest order. It embodied total disregard and total denial of ‘the other’ on no ground other than that the victims being non-Jewish. The relics of many of these towns can still be seen even today and are meticulously documented in Walid Khalidi’s monumental work, ‘All That Remains.’

Unfortunately, this modus operandi of hateful racism and terror remains Israel’s central policy towards the Palestinian people. There is no clearer proof of Israel’s malicious intent than the unrelenting intensive building of hundreds of Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Yes, everything here is ‘Jewish-only.’ Jewish-only settlements, Jewish-only roads, Jewish-only pools, even Jewish-only rights and Jewish-only tunnels since non-Jews are viewed by Zionism (religious and secular Zionism) as children of a lesser God or even outright animals.

Israeli and Zionist apologists may not express these beliefs openly on CNN and BBC. They are not that stupid. But the daily crimes of the Israeli state, its army and especially its Nazi-like settlers, bear a clarion testimony to this virulent racism, which can only be compared to the ideology of the Third Reich.

Just take a look at this evil gigantic wall, the stated goal of which is to prevent Palestinian guerrillas from infiltrating into Israel, whereas the real purpose is to carve and steal as much Palestinian land as possible, under the largely false rubric of security, and to narrow Palestinian horizons further and further by effectively converting Palestinian towns and villages into de facto detention camps. Perhaps a visit to the northern Palestinian town of Qalqilya will be more eloquent evidence of the brutal ugliness of Zio-Nazism.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the Wall was illegal and ought to be dismantled. However, Israel, backed by its guardian-ally, the United States, arrogantly defied the ruling and implicitly accused the court and its judges of anti-Semitism.

In addition to the settlements, inhabited by some of the most violent and racist-minded Jews anywhere in the world, Israel has always sought to make Palestinian lives so harsh and unbearable in order to coerce them to emigrate.

To realize this evil goal, successive Israeli governments (Labor and Likud alike) employed every conceivable legal trick, including the introduction of dual justice systems, a liberal one for Jews and a harsh one for non-Jews.

One expression of this judicial apartheid is the open-ended incarceration of thousands of Palestinian activists, students, professionals and college professors as well as politicians, including lawmakers and cabinet ministers, without charge or trial. (Since 1967 Israel has arrested over a million Palestinians).

When the notoriously insidious system of institutionalized repression failed to make significant numbers of Palestinians emigrate, Israel resorted to brazen physical harm in the form of terrorizing and killing the Palestinians at the slightest ‘provocation’, very much like Hitler’s forces did throughout Nazi-occupied Europe more than sixty years ago.

Needless to say, Israeli ‘pacification’ raids and incursions, like Nazi pacification raids and incursions, would leave many children and women killed, homes destroyed, farms pulverized, furniture and house appliances vandalized and roads and infrastructures thoroughly bulldozed. In short, everything, every conceivable crime is committed by this Nazi-like entity, all under the rubric of fighting terror. And then much of the Western media would just parrot the Israeli narrative as if the Israeli army spokesmen were the paragons of truth and honesty.

A state that allows and instructs its army to bombard with heavy artillery densely populated neighborhoods, as happened on numerous occasions, before and after the murderous onslaught against Gaza more than a year ago, is a Nazi state par excellence, even if it evokes the Torah, God, Ten Commandments, and terror.

Moreover, an army whose soldiers blithely and gleefully murder children on their way to school and then verify the killing by emptying twenty more bullets into the child’s head, as happened with Iman al Hams in Rafah nearly three years ago, and then the soldier is exonerated and given financial compensation, is not really an army of professional soldiers, but an army of thugs, gangsters and common criminals. It is an army that differs very little from the Wehrmacht, the Gestapo and SS.

And the fire storms over Gaza created by the heavy use of White Phosphorus over in densely populated neighborhoods? Well, I am sure that Hitler and his cohorts would have had much to learn from the Nazis of our time.

In 2002, Portuguese Noble Laureate Jose Saramago, who won the Noble Prize for literature in 1998, toured the occupied Palestinian territories and saw for himself the extent to which Israeli repression of Palestinians resembled Nazi behavior during World War II. Here is some of what he had to say about his impression following the tour.

“We must ring all bells in the world to tell that what is happening in Palestine is a crime, and it is within our power to stop it. We can compare it to what happened in Auschwitz, even if we consider the differences in place and time, it is still the same thing. From the military view point, Ramallah is the barracks, and the Palestinians are the prisoners inside.”

When challenged by some Israeli spokespeople that the Israelis were not shipping Palestinians to concentration camps, Saramago retorted, telling them, “Gas chambers are not the only way to kill people.”

In fact, Israel has been waging a ‘total war’ on a virtually completely unprotected civilian population, and this fact alone should justify the Zionist-Nazi analogy. The blitzkrieg in Gaza was too eloquent to need further explanation using human words?

According to the Israeli Hebrew Daily Ma’ariv, quoted by the famous British journalist Robert Fisk, an Israeli officer advised his troops to study tactics adopted by the Nazis in the Second World War.

“If our job is to seize a densely populated refugee camp or take over the Nablus Casbah, an officer must analyze the lessons of past battles even to analyze how the German army operated in the Warsaw Ghetto.” (see Robert Fisk, The Independent, London , 30th March, 2002)

Well, the Israelis don’t have to learn much from the Nazis or anybody else. In many respects, the Israeli army has succeeded in emulating and surpassing the Gestapo, the SS, and the Wehrmacht.

The Israeli army shoots and murders wounded civilians. The Israeli army destroys homes, occasionally right on top of sleeping civilians; the Israeli army bulldozes farms, olive groves, citrus orchards, agricultural fields as collective punishment, and Israeli tanks smash their way through the walls of refugee camp shanties, without the slightest regard for the inhabitants.

Like the Nazis’s victims were treated, Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza , from 15 to 60 years of age, are routinely rounded up, many are stripped naked, handcuffed, harshly interrogated and tortured. Politicians are kidnapped and held hostage and left to suffer, often without food and water. And Israeli occupation soldiers are give carte blanche to torment, humiliate and even kill innocent civilians at evil roadblocks manned by equally evil soldiers and border policemen.

In some cases, these soldiers even force innocent Palestinian youngsters to drink their (the soldiers’) urine as was reported by the Israeli press on several occasions.

As with the Nazis, hundreds of wounded Palestinians are left to die as Israeli troops deliberately block ambulances, and Israeli warplanes, including F-16s and Apache helicopters, rain bombs and missiles on major towns and refugee camps, such as Rafah, Khan Younis, Beit Hanoun, Jabalya, and on cities such as Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus. Indeed, the discovery of a single resistance fighter often results in the destruction of a huge multistory building as this writer witnessed in Hebron several times.

And yes, like the Nazis detained and interned thousands of Jews in special camps called concentration camps, the Israeli government also imprisons thousands of Palestinians in detention camps Israeli propagandists would argue that Israel could, from a purely military viewpoint exterminate six million Palestinians in a few days and that it doesn’t do so for ‘moral and ethical reasons.’

This is simply a big lie. If Israel were truly concerned about ‘moral and ethical considerations’ it wouldn’t be carrying out these horrendous daily crimes in Gaza, including the imposition of this criminal blockade which is meant to starve and torment innocent people just because they had the audacity to elect a political party that Israel and its huge proxy-like American colony didn’t like.

The real reason preventing Israel from carrying out a final solution against the Palestinians is the international public opinion and the feared political ramifications.

Is there hope for a peaceful solution to this enduring cancer? Certainly there is, and it lies in dismantling Zionism and the creation of a unitary, civic and democratic State in Palestine-Israel whereby Jews and Arabs can live equally as citizens as many Jews and Arabs are living in Europe and North America and many other parts of the world today. This is because the two-state strategy upon which current American-led peace efforts is irreversibly dead given the ubiquitous proliferation of Jewish-only settlement and the nearly complete Judaizing of Arab East Jerusalem.

I say Zionism ought to be dismantled because the anachronistic concept of ‘Jewish State’ necessarily implies intrinsic racism and violence against non-Jews. Indeed, Israel is constitutionally defined as the state of ‘all’ Jews irrespective of where they live. This means that Israel is also the state of millions of people around the world who are not Israeli citizens, while it is not a state of nearly one quarter of Israeli citizens who are followers of different religions. This scandalous anomaly must come to an end if there is to be peace and stability in Palestine/Israel.

Finally, Israel must not delude itself into thinking that it has achieved a final victory. It has not and it won’t. Because the conflict will remain open-ended until the slate is wiped clean.

Sixty-Two years are nothing in the history of this region.

Holy graves: Closer to peace or apocalypse?, By Ameen Izzdeen

Ameen Izzadeen — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:35:30 +0000

Tension is building up in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians, especially the youth, are furious, because Israeli troops stopped them from visiting the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem — Islam’s third holiest place of worship. They fear that Israel is carrying out excavation and construction work at the al-Aqsa site with the ill-intention of causing permanent damage to the foundation of the mosque, which the early Muslims turned toward when they prayed. The Palestinians say Israel which this week opened a rebuilt 17th century synagogue a few hundred metres away from the mosque compound, is excavating the area to locate another synagogue that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

The al-Aqsa lockdown came after weeks of protest in Hebron over the right wing Israeli government’s decision to include two mosques — the al-Khalili mosque where the body of Patriarch Abraham (Prophet Ibrahim to the Muslims) is said to have been buried and the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque in Bethlehem — on a national heritage list. This will effectively mean the Palestinians will lose administrative control of the two mosques. They see the inclusion of the two mosques on the heritage list as a Zionist scheme to Judaize them. Hardline Israelis insist that the two mosques were Jewish shrines. They say the Bilal bin Rabah mosque, named after Islam’s first Muezzin (the person who recites the call to prayers), is where the tomb of Rachel, wife of Jacob, is. They also claim that the Hebron mosque should be converted into a synagogue because Abraham belongs to the Jews. In 1993, a Zionist extremist, who believed the Arabs, the progeny of Abraham’s other son, Ishmael, were demons, massacred 27 worshippers in the al-Khalili mosque.

Clashes between stone-throwing Palestinian youths and armed Israeli troops over the holy graves began this February in Hebron and spread to Jerusalem, raising concerns that they could provoke the third Intifada or Palestinian uprising.

As the troubles continued, media reports said relations between the United States and Israel had taken a nosedive over Tel Aviv’s decision to build new settlements for Jews in occupied East Jerusalem, the capital of the state which the Palestinians seek to set up. The reports said Washington was furious because the announcement sent a signal that Israel showed scant regard for the Barack Obama administration’s request that all settlement building activities should stop.

Rubbing more salt to the wound, Israel’s announcement that it would build 1600 new houses coincided with the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden to that country. Some media reports described the timing of the announcement as a slap in the face and a great insult to the visiting vice president.

The announcement also calls into question the Benjamin Netanyahu government’s commitment to going along with President Obama’s efforts to bring about peace that will lead to a solution with Israel and the state of Palestine existing side-by-side.

The US was unhappy and it did not try to hide its displeasure. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her disapproval in what the New York Times described as a tense conversation with Netanyahu. She told the Israeli Prime Minister that it would not be enough to rescind the announcement of the new housing project. She insisted that he freeze any prominent building projects in East Jerusalem and agree that the talks convened by Obama’s West Asia envoy George Mitchell must deal with substantive issues about boundaries, the status of Jerusalem, security and refugees.

Obviously, by mentioning these substantive issues in the conversation, Clinton was hitting back because these were the very issues Israel shows reluctance to discuss.

The strong stance taken by the Obama administration drew an apology from Netanyahu. But he only expressed regret for the timing of the announcement, not for going against the wishes of the Obama administration which insists that Israel rescind the settlement plan. Aggravating the crisis, Netanyahu’s hawkish brother-in-law Hagai Ben-Artzi in a newspaper interview described Obama as anti-Semitic.

Ben-Artzi said Obama disliked the people of Israel because, for 20 years, he had been a follower of “anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, and anti-Jewish” Reverend Jeremiah Wright. “Think about it. If you had heard of someone who for 20 years sat in church and heard anti-Semitic sermons and didn’t get up to leave after two weeks, wouldn’t you think he identifies with it? As a politician running for presidency he had to hide it, but it comes out every time and I think we just have to say it plainly — there is an anti-Semitic president in America,” he said.

Never in the recent history have US-Israeli ties reached such a crisis point. Many wondered whether this was the beginning of the end of the special bond between the two countries — a bond that had prevented a just solution to the Palestinian question for the past six decades.

The answer came on Wednesday. The US may be displeased with Israel but it is not prepared to earn the wrath of Israel. President Obama mellowed and denied there was a crisis in Washington’s ties with Israel over its settlement plans. “Friends are going to disagree sometimes,” he said in an interview with the right wing Fox News Channel which, he had decided to boycott five months ago.

“Israel is one of our closest allies and we and the Israeli people have a special bond that’s not going to go away,” he said.

Clinton, meanwhile, also softened up, saying the United States was committed to protecting Israel and there existed a special bond between the two countries.

The sudden change in the US stance was expected. The Obama administration’s moves to placate Israel despite Tel Aviv’s refusal to consider the US request show that in this special relationship between the two countries, the US needs Israel more than Israel needs the US.

Obama might be entertaining a genuine desire to bring about peace in West Asia. Last year, too, he adopted a tough stand towards Israel and refused to talk to the Israeli Prime Minister unless he stopped all settlement activities. But in September, when Netanyahu visited the US to address the Untied Nations’ annual sessions, Obama softened his attitude and met the visiting Israeli leader.

Obama probably, by now, has learnt that he cannot exist politically without subscribing to Israel. Even the passage of his ambitious health care bill through Congress may not come if pro-Israeli representatives and senators in Congress decide to vote against it. Many US politicians are members of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee or the so-called Israeli lobby.

Even Obama’s second term depends on how friendly he is to Israel. A large number of Americans are still pro-Israel despite the web-based alternate media giving them the ‘other side of the story’ which the CNN or the Washington Post will not give.

Besides, the US also needs to work closely with Israel if the Iranian nuclear dispute leads to a war. Capitalising on Washington’s dependency on Israel, the Netanyahu government will, sooner rather than later, go ahead with its settlement-building plan.

West Asian peace activists see the Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian land as a major obstacle to conflict-resolution efforts. Building new settlements makes the process of finding peace even more difficult. Moreover, drawing the borders would become a tough task as some half a million Jewish settlers live in the West Bank. Evicting them will be no easy task.

These settlements and many more to be built in the future will shrink the Palestinian territory and raise questions over Israel’s border and its desire to make peace.

Israel is perhaps the world’s only country without properly-defined borders. Soon after the creation of Israel in 1948, when the then Israeli Justice Minister Pinhas Rozen wanted to define Israel’s borders, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, opposed it and strongly advised that it be kept unmentioned. Israel does not recognize the UN partition line as its border. Neither does it acknowledge the 1967 border which came to be recognized by Israel’s Western allies as the de-facto boundary.

With Israel adding more obstacles, one wonders whether it is on the path to peace or the path to Armageddon.

O Muslims, Al Aqsa is crying for your help. Help defeat Zionist designs on Jerusalem !

Latheef Farook — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:15:11 +0000

Masjid Al Aqsa, the first qibla of the Muslims, second oldest masjid after Makkah and the third most important holy place in Islam after Makka and Madina is located in the city of Jerusalem known to Muslims worldwide as Al Quds (The Holy) or Baitul Muqaddis (The House of Holiness).

The historical significance of the Masjid Al-Aqsa in Islam lies in the fact that the early Muslims turned towards it in prayer for a period of around seventeen months after the hijra or migration to Medina in 624 AC. Thus it became the qibla (direction) that Muslims faced for prayer. According to Allame Tabatabayee, Allah prepared Muslims for the change of the qibla, first by revealing the story of Ibrahim and his son Ishmael, and their prayers for Makkah, their construction of the House of Allah (Ka’aba) and the order to cleanse it of idols for the worship of the One True God-Allah. Then Quranic verses were revealed which ordered Muslims to turn towards Masjid al-Haram, the Holy Mosque in Makkah in their prayers.[Qur'an 2:142–151]

Masjid Al Aqsa is the place where Prophet Ibrahim, the patriarch of all the three great monotheistic faiths Judaism, Christianity and Islam prayed. It was in this very same Masjid that Allah resurrected and assembled all the prophets and messengers for Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to lead the prayer with them during his divine night journey to the heavens. Allah chose the Masjid of Jerusalem for this greatest prayer, for the first time in history, because of its purity, nobility, distinction and highest standing.

The ascension of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), from the rock beneath the Qubbat Al Sakhra Mosque known as Dome of the Rock to heaven remains the loftiest spiritual event in the history of Islam and highlights the importance of Jerusalem for Muslims. The direct ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from Makkah to heaven would have been possible for Allah, but He wanted it to take place from Jerusalem. That miraculous journey drew attention of Muslims to the specificity of Jerusalem and its extraordinary divine claim.

However, despite all this religious significance of Jerusalem for Muslims, the Zionist Jews who occupied East Jerusalem in their war of aggression in June 1967 have been repeatedly conspiring to destroy Masjid Al Aqsa and build in its place a new Solomon’s Temple, the older temple having been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AC, the remnants of which are only seen today as a wall known to Jews as the Wailing Wall. As part of this conspiracy they commenced a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing the Palestinians who had been living there for generations.

In this move the Zionists have been, directly and indirectly, backed by the United States, United Kingdom, France and Russia for long. Now they are being backed by US President Barack Obama, known for his longstanding avid support to Israel and described by Jeffery Goldberg, the most influential journalist on matters related to Israel, as more pro Israeli than either Ehud Olmert or Ehud Barak ( J Goldberg.New York Times,18 May 2009).In fact Obama told an American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee-AIPAC- audience in clear and bold diction that;
“Let me be clear, Israel’s security is sacrosanct. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive and that allows them to prosper. But any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided”.

In other words Obama openly assured the Zionist lobby that, on being elected as president of the United States, he would recognize Israel’s unfounded claim over Masjid Al Aqsa.

In doing so Obama was very well aware that East Jerusalem is a city occupied by Israel in its war of aggression. The irony is that a Presidential candidate of the United States, the most powerful country on earth, needs to please Jewish lobbies to enter the White House and also serve the Zionists despite their criminal records of which there are many such as the infamous massacre at Deir Yessin, a village inhabited by innocent Muslim and Christian Palestinians and now the recent genocide in Gaza.

Obama made this statement with no respect at all for international law, moral principles or the religious sentiments of Muslims worldwide, America’s trade and other relations with the Muslim countries, the economic impact on America and on top of all worldwide Muslim anger.

What can Muslims now expect from President Obama and his Zionist and neo con dominated administration hell bent on protecting Israel? Already the US Congress, more a Zionist Congress, voted in 1995 to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem in clear violation of international laws. In June 2009 President Obama postponed the move by a further six months. He would perhaps love to hand over full control of Masjid Al Aqsa to the Israelis and hence ensure Jewish support for a second presidential bid for the White House. Perhaps a little bit of wisdom had dawned on him about the consequences of doing so, especially in the light of the attachment of Muslims to Masjid Al Aqsa through the explicit words of Holy Quran ( Al Israa 17;1).

Thus the seriousness of the threat to Jerusalem and Masjid Al Aqsa.

The question is what has around one and half billion Muslims worldwide done to save Masjid Al Aqsa from the designs of Zionist Jews and their supporters in the US led West. There was a time when the Arab rulers, most of them lackeys of the Judeo-Christian West, met at glittering conference halls and issued statements emphasizing the need to protect Jerusalem. They dispersed asking the international community to deal with the Israeli conspiracy .However they never took, individually or jointly, any substantial step to protect Masjid Al Aqsa, let alone liberating it.

During World War 1 Jerusalem was under Turkey’s Ottoman rule .However following Turkey’s defeat in the war, Jerusalem was brought under British control on December 9, 1917. The Zionist Jews manipulated the toppling of Turkey and the then Arab rulers, corrupt and bribed, supported the British and the Jews to topple Muslim Ottoman Turkey.

Over the years the Arab rulers abandoned the Palestinians, Jerusalem and even Masjid Al Aqsa.Their only concern was to preserve their seats of power and comforts and, to ensure this they even started having open and secret relations with the very same Zionists despite all their conspiracies against Islam and Muslims. Even the toothless Organization of Islamic Conference has failed to do anything concrete to save Masjid Al Aqsa. However only Iran kept the Jerusalem issue alive by observing the last Friday of the holy Month of Ramadan as “Al Quds Day”.
The spacious complex of Masjid Al Aqsa.Masjid Al Aqsa is in the right and the Dome of the Rock in the left.
The Zionist Jews have been desecrating Masjid Al Aqsa beginning from the time of the British mandatory rule. A group of Jewish extremists, with the help of the British army, broke into the Al-Aqsa complex on 20 August 1929 and took control of the western area, including Al-Buraq Wall (now referred to as the Wailing Wall by the Jews). Within 15 days, 338 Palestinians died in their effort to thwart the Zionists’ plan. In June 1967 the Zionists entered Haram As-Sharif in tanks, seized the key of Al-Magharibah Gate and took control of the city’s eastern side, including Al-Aqsa Mosque. In 1970, the Israelis commenced intensive excavations directly beneath Masjid Al Aqsa on the southern and western sides. In 1977 digging continued and a large tunnel was opened below the women’s prayer area and a new tunnel was dug under the mosque, going east to west in 1979.

On August 21st 1969, a Jewish extremist called Dennis Michael Rohan (Jewish name: Mikhail Rohan) set Al-Aqsa on fire. The fire destroyed most of the mosque, including the historical minbar (pulpit), used by Salahuddin al-Ayyubi after he liberated Al-Aqsa from the Christian Crusaders. The Palestinians succeeded in extinguishing the fire, but Rohan was freed from all charges on grounds of insanity

In the 1980s, the Israelis started their so called archaeological project in the Masjid Al-Aqsa premises claiming that they were searching for the Temple of King Solomon. They dug another tunnel near the western portion of the masjid in 1984. In February 2007 Israelis started excavating a site, 60 meters away from the mosque, to rebuild a collapsed pedestrian bridge. As part of this conspiracy the Zionist Jews also trained Temple guards, sewed special Kohannim robes for the rabbis, and even built a model of the temple near Masjid Al-Aqsa. War criminal Ehud Olmert, former mayor of Jerusalem and former Prime Minister who slaughtered starving Palestinians in Gaza, officiated at the opening of the Jewish Museum, built underneath Masjid Al-Aqsa.

The Aqsa Mosque where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) led prayers with all the prophets, from Adam (alaihe salam) to Isa (alaihe salaam). The home of prophets, the first qibla of Muslims and the place where the Miraj journey commenced.

Close up view of Masjid Al Aqsa. Please make sure you, your children, your friends and all others know which the real Masjid Al Aqsa is.

The Masjid Al Aqsa seen from Al Buraq which the Jews call the Western Wall 1991.In the background is the Dome of the Rock,Qubbat us Sakhra mosque in the Masjid Al Aqsa complex.

On October 15th 1989, the “Guardians of the Temple” group laid the foundation for the Solomon’s Temple. The tunnel underneath the mosque reached the length of 400 meters (half the length of Al-Aqsa), and damaged the structure. Sheikh Raed Solah, the leader of the Islamic movement in Jerusalem who exposed these activities was imprisoned.

During his brief visit to Bahrain on Monday 16 November 1998 Sheikh Ekrima Sa’ad Sabri, the chief preacher at Masjid Al Aqsa,made a passionate appeal to Muslims all over urging them to save Masjid Al Aqsa and Jerusalem from the Zionists and, thereby, safeguard their rights and dignity.

In an emotional plea during an interview with me Sheikh Ekrima said “Jerusalem which Allah declared as a Muslim city from the day the Prophet Muhammad ( pbuh) was taken on the journey to heaven “Al Isra Al Miraj” is in danger. He warned that failure to save it will be disastrous as it will expose other religious places including the Holy Cities of Makkah and Madina to Zionist designs.

He said Israelis continue to dig under Masjid Al Aqsa and other residential districts in the old city to pave the way for the automatic collapse of Masjid Al Aqsa and other buildings of religious importance. Israelis have been changing the Islamic characteristic of the city almost on a daily basis and many of Jerusalem’s Islamic landmarks have been falling down and disappearing one after the other.
Therefore, it is the religious duty of Muslims worldwide to do everything possible to free this city from Zionist Jewish control, pleaded Sheikh Ikrima.

Eleven years later today the situation is worse as Israel often imposes severe restrictions on access to the mosque for Palestinian Muslims living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian males must be married and at least 50 years of age and women must be married and at least 45 years of age to enter the Masjid. Palestinian visits are therefore rare during most of the year, except during the month of Ramadan.
On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon ,a war criminal soaked in innocent Palestinian blood, visited al-Aqsa along with 1,000 armed guards, and deliberately triggered off a seven-year uprising by the Palestinians referred to as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Early Settlements of Palestine

There is no historic record or evidence showing when the land of Palestine was inhabited. However archaeological discoveries point to the first known settlements of Canaanites and Amorites around 10th Century BC.
According to ancient tradition, Jerusalem was first a small village known as Salem inhabited by Canaanites, the ancestors of the Palestinians. A great and righteous Canaanite king Melchizedek, a contemporary of the Prophet Ibrahim (pbuh) who lived around 2900 BC, turned this village into a city and called it Ursalem (The City of Peace) which the Jews turned into Yerushalayim which eventually became Jerusalem.

Most scholars are of the opinion that Masjidul Al Aqsa, first built by Prophet Adam, was the second Masjid on earth built 40 years after building the Ka’ba in Makkah.

It was rebuilt several times. For example Prophet Ibrahim rebuilt Masjid Al Aqsa as he and his son Ismail rebuilt the Ka’ba in Makkah followed by Prophet Daud. It was Prophet Sulayman who finally completed the building of Masjid Al Aqsa which was later destroyed in 587 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.
The Jews regard this same Masjid Al Aqsa built by Prophet Sulayman as their Temple. They re-built their Temple on the same site in 167 BC but it was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans when the Jews were banished from Jerusalem. Since then the site of Masjid Al Aqsa remained barren and was used as a rubbish heap for nearly 600 years until the Caliph Umar Ibn Khattab liberated Jerusalem in 637/8 AD.

Caliph Umar, as stated earlier, began the foundation of Masjidul Al Aqsa and built a timber mosque. The Umayyad Khalifah, Abd’ al Malik ibn Marwan in 691/2 began the construction of the Dome of the Rock called Qubbat Al Sakhra Masjid. This is one of the world’s most beautiful and enduring architectural treasures to date. The gold dome stretches 20 meters across the Noble Rock, rising to an apex more than 35 meters above it. The Qur’anic verse ‘Ya Sin’ inscribed across the top in the dazzling tile work was commissioned in the 16th century by Turkey’s Ottoman Ruler Suleiman the Magnificent.

Dome of the Rock- Qubbat as-Sakhra. The magnificent golden yellow dome of the Qubbat us Sakhra has, over time, been depicted as the symbol of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This disinformation about the mosque is part of a purposeful plan to mislead the world. Many Muslims mistakenly think the Qubbat Al-Sakhrah Mosque (shown on the left) also known as the “Dome of the rock” is the Al-Aqsa Mosque!!

This is the rock beneath Qubbat Al Sakhra-Dome of the rock, from where Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
Ascended to heaven on Shab-e- Mairaj

Below is the close up of the rock from where Prophet Muhammad( pbuh) ascended to heaven.

The al Buraq wall or Western Wall where Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) tied his animal, the Buraq, on the night journey of al Isra is what the Jews call the Wailing Wall. To Muslims it is the land of the Haram Sharif area which is most holy and important. The Haram area of Al Aqsa of about 144,000 square meters has within it the Masjid Al Aqsa [Black Domed Mosque] and Dome of the Rock [the Golden Domed Mosque].

Over the years Jerusalem came to be known as Al-Quds-The Holy. Many of the Prophet’s Companions traveled to worship at the blessed spot from where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) ascended to the heavens. According to the authentic tradition of the Prophet, travel for the sake of worship is undertaken to only three mosques; the Sacred Mosque in Makkah, the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina and the Furthest Mosque-Masjid Al Aqsa- in Jerusalem.
Muslims’ respect all the Prophets revered by Judaism and Christianity and thus their venerated places are also central to the ethos of Islam. The land of Palestine has in it some of the noblest souls the earth has seen. The graves of many Prophets such as Ibrahim, Yakub and Ishaq are in Palestine and, according to some commentators, there are over 100 Prophets buried in Palestine.

Palestine also has the bodies of some of the closest companions of the Prophet (pbuh) and thus the first generation of Muslims. These include the graves of Ubada ibn al Samit, Shaddad ibn Aws ibn Thabit al Ansari and Tamim al Dari [ra].

The Prophet Ibrahim migrated to the land of Canaan around 2900 BC. The Holy Qur’an states: “We said, O Fire! Be thou cool and safety for Ibrahim. Then they planned against him, but We made them the greater losers. But we delivered him and (his nephew) Lot (and directed them) to the land which we have blessed for the nations (Al-Anbiyaa 21: 69-71). The Holy Qur’an reports Prophet Musa telling his people: O my people! Enter the holy land… (Al-Maida 5: 21) ).

Umm Salamah [ra] narrates that she heard the Prophet [ pbuh] saying, ‘whosoever starts his Umrah or Haj from Masjid al Aqsa his wrong actions will be forgiven, both past and future’. In another version, he is reported to have said that Paradise would be his reward. (Targheeb).

Jerusalem Under Muslim Control

During the period of the Second Caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab, the Muslim forces, under the command of Abu Ubaydah, lay siege to Jerusalem after capturing Damascus in the Battle of Yarmuk. The Patriarch of the city, Sophronius, stated that he would negotiate only with Caliph Umar and that nobody enters Jerusalem before Caliph Umar. On hearing this Caliph Umar informed that he was on his way.

Accompanied by a servant, Caliph Umar rode on camelback to Jerusalem though he could have been accompanied by an entourage that could have made the ground tremble under the hooves of horses. He did so to show simplicity and ensure that Allah alone deserves all the glories.
On reaching Jerusalem, it was the servant’s turn to ride the camel and as a mark of respect and to ensure that the people see Caliph Umar, he wanted the Caliph to ride the camel. However Caliph Umar refused and entered Jerusalem on foot while the servant rode the camel to the shock and surprise of everyone including Patriarch Sophronius. On reaching the place Caliph Umar continued the journey on foot carrying his shoes in hand under the astonished gaze of the people.

The Muslims who saw this spectacle recited the short prayers that refer to Allah’s absolute greatness and uniqueness. Caliph Umar walked to the army wearing modest threadbare clothes. The Christians who watched everything from the walls of Jerusalem were amazed at the strange simplicity, unable to believe that this simple man could be the leader of those well equipped armies.

Abu Ubaidah who could not contain himself on seeing this unprecedented show of humility rushed to Umar’s side saying” today you have performed a magnificent deed before the people, perhaps you might….? Umar slapped him on the chest and criticized him saying “I wish someone other than you, Abu Ubaydah, had said this. We were a humiliated people and Allah honored us with Islam. We were weak and He gave us strength”.

The Patriarch who saw the unfolding scenes with great admiration said to his people that nobody in the world would be able to stand up to these people and advised them to surrender to be saved. Negotiation took place and a famous treaty called ‘Umariyya Covenant” was concluded .This treaty is still preserved in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The Christians requested that Jews, who were not there before the conquest, be forbidden to enter Jerusalem and Umar accepted. Yet on his part Umar offered members of all faiths safety in Jerusalem and protection for their beliefs and their holy places, forbidding them to be desecrated or destroyed.

After the treaty was signed the key to the city was formally handed over in 637 AC. The gates of Jerusalem were opened and Caliph Umar entered along a promenade that led him to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Caliph Umar was inside and the Patriarch said to him “pray”. However Caliph Umar declined, fearing it might establish a precedent that would threaten the church’s continued use as a Christian house of worship. Instead he prayed in an area to the south of the church, now the site of the Mosque of Umar in Jerusalem.

In doing so Caliph Umar showed the world the meaning of tolerance and generosity in victory and strength. It was the greatness of Islam that shone in his spirit and was reflected in his ethics though he was a person known for his firmness and courage.

Caliph Umar then asked to be taken to the site of Masjid Al Aqsa.He could not find, but patriarch showed him the way.
On arrival, accompanied by hundreds of Muslims, he found the area covered in dust and debris. He rolled up his sleeves and began sweeping and clearing the mosque immediately. On seeing this other Muslims including army generals and soldiers joined him in cleaning the place. Once cleaned up Caliph Umar took off his cloak, prayed and left there. It was the first prayer of Muslims in the Masjid Al Aqsa after the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
Caliph Umar immediately ordered the restoration of the mosque. A huge timber mosque, Masjid Al Marwani, with a capacity to accommodate 3000 worshippers was erected on this site at the southernmost wall of the Noble Sanctuary. They then started praying in this holy place. This was the most peaceful manner Jerusalem was conquered and great status of this mosque was restored after the affront committed by the Christians.
Under Caliph Umar’s generosity those who wanted to leave were allowed to do so with all their possessions while others who opted to stay were guaranteed protection for their lives, property and places of worship. Later Caliph Umar reversed the four hundred year Christian ban on Jews, allowed them to return to Jerusalem and granted Christians free use of their holy sites .Thus he turned Jerusalem into a city where Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived in tolerance, peace and harmony.

This opened the doors to the Jews who were denied access to Jerusalem. Throughout the Muslim rule of Jerusalem, from 637 to 1917 except for two relatively short periods, Jerusalem maintained its rightful title of ‘The Holy City’.

Under Muslim rule there were no massacres, no burning and looting and no desecration of holy places unlike being committed now by the Zionist Jews. The only conflict that marred the peace of the city was the conflict between various Christian sects for control of the Christian holy sites, but Muslims were generally successful in keeping them from violent confrontations.

Instead when Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders in the year 1099 the invaders went into the city with all the barbarity. They slaughtered people without any discrimination- young and the aged, men and women and healthy and the sick. Most of the people took refuge in the masjid of Jerusalem which was filled with around 100,000 people. The crusader governor found no better chance to behead them and got them slaughtered.

The crusaders occupied Jerusalem for 91 years before Salahudin’s forces retook the city. In fact this gives hope to Muslims worldwide today that Jerusalem can be retaken however long it may take.

Thus the history of Jerusalem is no ordinary history. In this history the purpose of Allah is manifested in a very special way. According to several scholars the events that have taken place in Jerusalem in recent years or are now taking place also have a divine message. They are meant, it seems, to remind us that we have not been living up to our responsibility as Muslims to strive to make supreme the word of Allah. They are also meant, it seems, to prepare for yet another decisive battle, both of arms and of ideas, between tawhid and shirk, between the worship of the one true universal Allah and the worship of the three idols of Zionism: nation, race and land.

Muslims duties and responsibilities.

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said that “There will be a group from my ummah that will always be on the true and righteous path. They will overcome their enemies and will not be transgressed against unless suffering befalls them, until Allah’s help comes and they return to their normal state”. The companions asked: Where do they live, oh Rasulullah? The Prophet replied: “In Jerusalem and the surrounding areas” (reported by Ahmad).
Allah has chosen the Palestinian people to be the ones to protect Al-Aqsa. They have sacrificed everything, including their lives, wealth, family, children and their whole world in order to defend our holy land. They have given everything for Allah and when they meet Him; their responsibility will have been fulfilled.
The question is what the rest of the Muslims contributed to Al-Aqsa? Defending Al-Aqsa is an obligation, so is it enough for us to just look on while our brothers and sisters suffer? What will be our answer in front of
Allah on the Day of Resurrection?

There are many steps Muslims can take to show solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters to protest the Zionist occupation of their land and the sufferings inflicted upon them. The main thing is for us to propagate the cause by denouncing the oppression and use all available resources to help the suffering Palestinians morally and financially.

Hopefully our small but consistent contributions and our constant prayers will save us in the Hereafter. So continue to pray and contribute if you have means to do so.

Masjid Al Aqsa is crying for your help, By Latheef Farook

Latheef Farook — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:29:38 +0000

Zionist Jews vow to destroy Masjid Al Aqsa and build in its place the Solomon’s Temple.They excavate in and around Masjid Al Aqsa so that the building collapses on its own. Already they have dug a 400 meter a tunnel beneath the women’s prayer area.

The Arab dictators have abandoned the Palestinians, Jerusalem and Masjid Al Aqsa.
Most Muslims remain confused unable to distinguish between Masjid Al Aqsa where Allah resurrected all the prophets for Prophet Muhammad ( pbuh) to lead the prayer and the nearby Masjid Qubbat Al Shakra, Dome of the Rock, from where Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) ascended to heaven.

Thus this elaborate article providing historic background, Jerusalem’s importance in Islam, Zionist Jewish conspiracies and the responsibility of Muslims towards Jerusalem, Masjid Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock .

Kindly circulate this article as our contribution to our Palestinian brothers and sisters facing cruel Israeli oppression backed by United States led Christian west.