By Noman Hanif, PhD
In the Name of Allah the Most Beneficent, Most Merciful
Over the last few days, Israeli occupation forces have attacked worshippers in
al-Aqsa Mosque and its periphery causing hundreds of casualties. The White
House expressed its “serious concerns” on the streak of violence in occupied
east al-Quds, amidst an escalation in tensions against the backdrop of the
Israeli forces’ storming of al-Aqsa Mosque. Spokesperson of al-Qassam
Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, Abu Ubaydah, issued an ultimatum to
the Israeli forces to withdraw from al-Aqsa Mosque before 18.00 hours today
or bear the consequences. A barrage of missiles followed this from Gaza
targeting Israeli positions in Tel Aviv, al-Quds and Gaza’s surroundings.
This was condemned by State Department spokesperson Ned Price who
stressed that Israel reserved the right to defend itself and that the US was fully
committed to working towards calming the situation in al-Quds. The Israeli
military escalation against Gaza, together with its provocative storming of alAqsa Mosque, and the expulsion of Muslim worshippers from its compound,
is designed to lure the Palestinian factions into an armed struggle and
militarize the clashes in order to justify the excessive clampdown, halt the
disconcerting popular resistance, break the unity of the masses and their
support for their brethren in al-Quds, abort the precedent of rebelling against
the criminal entity with regard to seizing Palestinian lands and homes,
demonize the Palestinian dynamism, and incite world public opinion against
the uprising of the Muslim Palestinian youth to defend their sacred precincts.
As for the disgraceful and despicable reactions of the Muslim leaders to the
Zionist aggression against the Muslims and the holy sites, they corroborate yet
again the need to intensify the efforts to expose them as they represent the
obstacle impinging on the unity of the Islamic people, her strength and her
undertaking of the duty of Jihad, and they are the faithful watchdogs of the
criminal entity and the cause behind its ghoulish comportment and savagery
against our people in Palestine.
The Arab regimes’ condemnation of the Israeli attack against the holy sites,
especially by Egypt, Saudi, the cubicles of the Gulf, and the weighty diplomatic
pressure they have generated, reflect the American desire to internationalize
the sacred precincts and snatch them from the Muslims, and consequently
thwart Netanyahu’s attempts to impose a fait accompli through implementing
Donald Trump’s plan, and reshuffle the pack to sidestep his political crisis,
and frustrate his plans to invest in the events to his advantage in forming the
cabinet, knowing that although the various political forces in the US agree on
protecting and supporting Israel, they however differ on supporting Israeli
policies, such as the Democratic Party’s aversion to the fait accompli policy
pursued by Israel in tackling the Palestinian issue to preserve Israeli”
interests.
This is what John Kerry announced when he differed with Netanyahu during
Obama’s tenure. And it is in this context we can interpret America’s stance
which separates the security of Israel from Israeli political behaviour and
prefers to express her real stance to the Zionist entity in private, and then
expound her position at the Security Council which on the surface seems to
support the Israeli behavior, whereas in fact it implicates Netanyahu and
serves the American agenda pertinent to internationalizing the holy
precincts.
This explains the emoting of the state-controlled Arab media outlets,
especially Aljazeera, and the inciting of the resistance groups to jump into the
fray and terrorize the Zionist residents through media support sensationalize,
and then harness the fallouts to rabble-rouse Israeli public opinion against
Netanyahu and mortify him, and to exploit them in generating a suitable
climate to internationalize the crisis and revive the project of
internationalizing the holy precincts.
This also explains why the Palestinians have been exhorted to stage protests
throughout the country and why the Israeli rightwing public opinion
supporting Netanyahu’s policy has been unsettled through a host of
judgmental statements and commentaries.
The decision to extend the protests, which have reached the region of the
Negev in an unprecedented manner, was designed to perpetuate the popular
resistance and keep the issue of the hoy precincts alive and persistently
warranting a solution. Hence, the regimes in Arab and Islamic countries
understood their role, established their stance in light of their reading of the
events and international reactions and trends, and upped the ante in their
diplomatic campaign.
What corroborates the fact that the holy precincts are the heart of the events is
the stakeholders’ persistence in linking the events to the issue of the holy
precincts, including Hamas’s conditions to halt the escalation. Therefore, the
Israeli police confronted the protesters in al-Quds and other Palestinian cities
with an iron fist, and Israel continued the escalation against Hamas
specifically and vowed to deal the movement a heavy blow, while Netanyahu
sought to lure Hamas into a military confrontation to evoke the security fears
of the Zionists, mobilize them, and gain their support to sidestep his political
crisis and give himself a chance to retract and save face under the pretext of
regional and international pressure should he fail in imposing a fait accompli
and in attracting the support of the extremist religious rightwing through
usurping the lands and holy precincts of the people of Palestine.
The Muslims should not concern themselves with the political stance and the
proposed pragmatic solutions, nor should they be concerned with the
quibbling of the colonialists over the methods of slaughter, aggression, and
humiliation they are preparing for Palestine and the sacred sites of the
Muslims.
The people of Palestine, men and women alike, and all the Muslims, have
stood their ground without any cowardice or slackness and represented it in
their struggle, heroism and defense of their holy sites, written it with their
blood and made their enemy hear it loud and clear with their bare hands,
stones and sit-ins, and not with their smartphones and their iftar at the tables
of the enemies of Allah, or by resorting to the international community.
They have confirmed unequivocally that there should be no surrender of one
single inch of the Islamic lands, and no slackness towards their sacred sites,
but rather blood for blood, and destruction for destruction, which have
prevented the Zionists from imposing their will and compelled them to
withdraw from the compounds of al-Aqsa and postpone the judicial file on the
eviction of the residents of Sheikh Jarrah, as if they were saying to the
Muslims outside Palestine: “Salvage yourselves from the rulers who are the
brothers of the Zionists, dust off the humiliation covering the bystanders from
among you, and epitomize your support for your brethren and sanctities in
Palestine and al-Quds by supporting your Islam, and exposing your regimes
which have enslaved you.
“O you who believe! If you help the cause of Allah, He will help you,
and will make firm your steps.”
[Mohammed-7]