CAIRO: The world’s billion-plus Muslims should go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to show that it is a Muslim city and the future capital of a Palestinian state, Egypt s Minister of Religious Endowments was quoted on Thursday as saying.
Minister Mohamed Hamdi Zaqzouq made the appeal despite the Arab world’s refusal of normalization with Israel, which wants to make Jerusalem its “eternal and undivided capital.
“Just as Muslims go on pilgrimage . to Mecca, they should also go to Jerusalem and to the Al-Aqsa Mosque by the hundreds of thousand every year, the Al-Masry Al-Youm daily quoted Zaqzouq as saying.
This way “we can show the whole world that Jerusalem is something that concerns all Muslims, Zaqzouq said.
East Jerusalem is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site after Mecca’s El-Masjid El Sharif (the Grand Mosque) and Medina’s El-Masjid El Nabawi (The Mosque of the Prophet), both in Saudi Arabia.
Israel invaded, occupied and annexed Arab east Jerusalem, also the location of key holy sites of Christianity and Judaism, in 1967. The international community says the annexation is illegal.
Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but continues to reject normalization, including most travel to Israel, as long as the Jewish state occupies Arab lands captured in 1967.
“I invite all Muslims . to go to Jerusalem, even with Israeli visas, and I know full well that I’m exposing myself to virulent attacks, by saying this, Zaqzouq told a conference entitled “Jerusalem from an Islamic point of view.
“If this proposition is followed through, the whole world, and Israel, will have to accept this reality, which is that Jerusalem is for Muslims and they will not give up on it, the state-owned Al-Ahram daily quoted him as saying.
Zaqzouq said that unfortunately his proposal has so far been rejected “and I am accused of seeking normalization with Israel.
The Palestinian Authority last month accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing after it delivered dozens of eviction orders to Arab residents of east Jerusalem.
Israel rarely grants building permits to Arab residents of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to make the capital of their promised state. -AFP
