Palestinian solidarity with BLM; calls to demolish Pyramids; Arabs were
first inhabitants of Jerusalem
Newsletter published on June 19, 2020
(1) Palestinian solidarity with BLM
(2) Calls to demolish Pyramids; Hollywood/Bible version of Egypt vs
Archaeology
(3) Protests are supported by the same Foundationss that supported color
revolutions
(4) Black Lives Matter receives $100 Million from Foundations - policemag
(5) Trump bans chokeholds
(6) Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Choke Holds ‘Unless An Officer’s
Life Is At Risk’
(7) Democrats in key battleground states warn against Annexation
(8) Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem
(1) Palestinian solidarity with BLM
Palestinian activists press solidarity between Palestinians, Black Lives
Matter
Palestinians raised photos of Iyad al-Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian
shot by Israeli police, and George Floyd to make a comparison between
racism against black people and Palestinians.
Aziza Nofal
Jun 17, 2020
RAMALLAH, West Bank — When a group of Israeli soldiers tried to arrest
Hala Marshood, a young Palestinian woman participating in a peaceful
protest against the killing of Iyad al-Hallaq in Jerusalem, she shouted
"I can’t breathe" in reference to the last words of George Floyd, whose
arrest and murder reverberated in the United States and around the
entire world. Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in Minneapolis as a
police officer knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds,
unleashing demonstrations against racism and police brutality.
Marshood was taking part in a peaceful feminist march on June 9
sponsored by the Tal’at movement (Arabic for "stepping out"), a
Palestinian feminist movement. The protests were held in the cities of
Ramallah, Rafah and Jerusalem, and in cities inside Israel, including
Haifa, Jaffa and Nazareth, against the Israeli racist policies and
killings of Palestinians, the latest of which was the shooting of
Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian, at the entrance of Al-Aqsa Mosque May 30.
Palestinian women raised the photos of Hallaq and Floyd side by side,
shouting slogans against racism and calling for the right to a better life.
Palestinian activists have drawn an analogy between Floyd and Hallaq, as
Israeli police were not held accountable for the killing of Hallaq —
Floyd's killer and those who were accomplices were eventually arrested,
however. Police alleged Hallaq was attempting to stab Israeli soldiers.
Activists presented the case of Hallaq as a clear example of the racist
practices against them and the oppression they face only because they
are Palestinians, comparing their situation to that of African Americans
in the United States, according to Hadil Battrawi, 24, an outspoken
Palestinian activist on public and political rights. She holds a
master’s degree in public international law from the University of Lander.
"What’s happening in the United States is very similar to the situation
in Palestine," she told Al-Monitor.
"The successive US governments have been working on portraying black
people as a burden to society who flout the laws in a bid to condone the
racist measures against them. This is the case with Israel that has been
painting Palestinians as terrorists worthy only of extermination,"
Battrawi said.
"Although we strongly condemn what happened to Floyd, it was an
opportunity for us to show the world the reality of things in
Palestine," she added.
Battrawi believes Palestinian activists ought to build on this sweeping
movement against racism around the world in light of the decline of the
Palestinian political rhetoric on the global arena, in order to re-shift
the attention on the Palestinian people’s narrative.
Palestinian institutions, especially those active at the international
level, also condemned racist policies against blacks. In a statement on
June 1, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement called on the
International Solidarity Movement in the United States to stand by the
Black Lives Matter movement and other black-led organizations in their
struggle for justice.
"We, as the indigenous people of Palestine, have first-hand experience
with colonialism and apartheid committed by the Israeli regime, which
receives unconditional military and financial support from the United
States and the successive American administrations," the statement read.
Amnesty International added fuel to the fire and gave more momentum to
the Palestinian activism when it published a report referring to the
training of several US police departments with Israel, which was
described as "a chronic human rights violator."
Salah Khawaja, a member of the coordination committee of the Palestinian
Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, concurred with Battrawi’s
statements on the need to build on the international condemnation of
racist policies and practices, which stemmed from the killing of Floyd.
"There is a similar pattern in the repressive practices whether in the
United States or any other country, which could be highlighted in order
to stop condoning any practices against humanity and human rights,"
Khawaja told Al-Monitor.
He said this is not the first time Palestinian activists get inspired by
international events, as they had also identified and sympathized with
Mexicans when President Donald Trump spoke of erecting a wall on the
borders. This time, however, is more sensitive, with the decline in the
attention on the Palestinian cause.
Khawaja said Palestinian official leadership should seize this
opportunity via its international arms to rekindle and ramp up support
for solidarity movements for Palestinian self-determination and autonomy
and the right to justice and to convey the Palestinian message
throughout the world.
But are these campaigns and movements enough to advance the Palestinian
cause? The answer is no for Mona Shtaya, a human rights activist who
believes that Palestinian activists ought to go to the streets in
marches and events rather than focusing on social media activism, which
would draw more attention and focus to their cause.
(2) Calls to demolish Pyramids; Hollywood/Bible version of Egypt vs
Archaeology
Archaeologists, activists alarmed by online calls to demolish Pyramids
After bringing down statues, symbolic of racism and oppression in the US
and the UK during the Black Lives Matter protests, some social media
activists started calling for the demolition of the Pyramids, basing
their argument on the contested notion that they were built by slaves.
Shahira Amin
Jun 17, 2020
The hashtag #pyramids has been widely circulating on Twitter in recent
days, but not for the reasons one might expect. The fact that Cairo is
preparing to reopen the country for tourism within weeks or that many
travelers are eagerly waiting for the coronavirus threat to subside, to
visit Egypt — if only to feast their eyes on the centuries-old monuments
in Giza — has little to do with the viral hashtag.
Oddly enough, the Pyramids have instead been cited multiple times in an
online discussion between Twitter users on whether or not these massive
structures built as tombs for the pharaohs of Egypt's Old Kingdom more
than 4,000 years ago should be torn down for allegedly having been built
by "slaves."
"Take down the #Pyramids. Slaves built them!" was one tweet advocating
destruction of the monuments that have stood the test of time.
Nigel Hetherington, archaeologist and founder of Past Preservers, a
heritage consultancy, dismissed the calls as "not serious," saying, "I
don’t think that those were ever real calls to pull down the Pyramids."
"The image of thousands of slaves toiling under a burning sun and a
vicious pharaoh is hard to shake, it seems. Despite years of study and
archaeological research and discoveries, the Hollywood version of Egypt
still seems to captivate people," he told Al-Monitor.
While it was unclear if the comments were sarcastic, they provoked a
backlash from critics who refuted the fallacy, with some urging the
social media users spreading such ideas to "read history."
Dismayed Egyptians chipped in defending the funerary monuments that are
an important part of their cultural heritage and history against what
some perceived as real threats.
Skeptics, meanwhile, suggested that the misconception was deliberately
circulated to vilify the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests decrying
racism and police brutality.
"The Egyptian Pyramids are now being used to discredit protests against
racism, colonialism and slavery with the argument they have been built
exploiting forced slave labor. They were not," Jens Notroff, a German
archaeologist, counter-argued on his Twitter account.
The online debate was triggered by the toppling of statues in the United
States and in the United Kingdom perceived by anti-racism protesters as
symbols of racism and colonialism. The protests that started in the
United States in late May have since reverberated across Europe and
other parts of the world. On June 7, a statue of Edward Colston, a
17th-century slave trader, was pulled down by protesters in Bristol,
England, before being thrown in the harbor. The move followed similar
acts of vandalism in the United States. On June 6, Black Lives Matter
protesters used ropes to pull down a statue of Williams Carter Wickham,
a Confederate general, in a university campus park in Richmond, Virginia.
A number of other monuments have also been defaced or spray-painted in
the otherwise peaceful protests, sparked by the May 25 killing of George
Floyd during his arrest by four police officers over alleged forgery in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
But Katie A. Paul, an America anthropologist and co-director of the
Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research Project,
draws a distinct line between the toppling of the statues emblematic of
racism and oppression and the online calls to destroy the Pyramids,
which she said "are steeped in false understanding of their history and
construction." She warned that such calls "set a dangerous precedent
where misinformation would drive historical destruction. "
"The statues toppled in the United States and Europe are symbolic
representations that deify slave owners and genocidal leaders. They are
being removed or vandalized today because they idolize figures who
committed the worst kind of oppression," she explained in an email to
Al-Monitor. "The Pyramids were not constructed to idolize slavery or
genocide nor do they serve as monuments to revere an era of oppression."
She continued, "The Great Pyramid of Giza represents the same thing now
that it was meant to when it was first constructed: an unmatched feat of
human ingenuity."
The calls for demolition of the Pyramids also caused alarm among some
Egyptian archaeologists like Monica Hanna who called them "dangerous"
and "irresponsible."
"Such calls are reminiscent of similar calls made by some extremists in
2012 to destroy Pharaonic monuments or cover them in wax in the
conviction that the Pharaonic civilization was corrupt and deserved to
be destroyed," said Hanna, who is acting dean of the College of
Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at the Arab Academy for Science,
Technology and Maritime Transport.
She was referring to ominous threats against the Sphinx and the Pyramids
made by radical Sheikh Morgan Al Gohary. In an interview broadcast on
the Egyptian privately owned channel Dream TV in November 2012, the
Salafist cleric boasted about taking part along with the Taliban in the
demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in March 2001. He
suggested covering the Pharaonic monuments in wax, arguing that Sharia
advocates the destruction of every pagan and idol. His controversial
remarks shocked Egyptians at the time, fueling fears that the country's
cultural heritage was under threat under Muslim Brotherhood rule.
Hanna also rebutted the false claim that the Pyramids were built by
slaves, which she said are rooted in Biblical tradition.
"The Pyramids were built by Egyptian workers recruited from all over the
country during the inundation season when the peasants would temporarily
cease work on the farmlands," she told Al-Monitor.
"We have the papyrus logbooks of the workers and we have found the tombs
of the workers from which we know that the workers were fed meat, had
access to medical care and were paid in rations of bread and beer," she
said. The papyrus logbooks she referred to are the Diary of Merer
discovered in 2013 by a French mission working under the direction of
the Sorbonne University in Paris. The journal of a previously unknown
official of the same name chronicles the daily activities of stone
transportation from the Tura limestone quarry to the Pyramid site in Giza.
"Building the Pyramids was also a project of faith as the Egyptians
believed the Pharaohs were the divine intermediaries between the Gods
and the people, so they were building a house for the eternal life of
these religious leaders and Heads of State," Hanna added.
In response to the calls for demolition of the Pyramids, some Twitter
users shared their photographs with the Pyramids as a backdrop from
their holiday trips to Egypt, starting an impromptu campaign that may
attract more visitors to Egypt once the country resumes international
flights. Tourism is one of Egypt's most important sources of income,
accounting for around 12% of the country's gross domestic product.
(4) Black Lives Matter receives $100 Million from Foundations - policemag
Black Lives Matter Receives $100 Million from Foundations
June 12, 2020
by POL Staff
The anti-police activist group Black Lives Matter has received pledges
of more than $100 million in donations from foundations and other sources.
The Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy recently announced the
formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund [BLMF], a six-year pooled donor
campaign aimed at raising $100 million for the Movement for Black Lives
coalition.
That funding comes in addition to more than $33 million in grants to the
Black Lives Matter movement from George Soros through his Open Society
Foundations, as well as grant-making from the Center for American Progress.
"The BLMF provides grants, movement building resources, and technical
assistance to organizations working advance the leadership and vision of
young, Black, queer, feminists and immigrant leaders who are shaping and
leading a national conversation about criminalization, policing and race
in America," said the Borealis announcement.
Ford and Borealis are hardly alone: They said the fund will "complement
the important work" of charities including the Hill-Snowden Foundation,
Solidaire, the NoVo Foundation, the Association of Black Foundation
Executives, the Neighborhood Funders Group, anonymous donors, and others.
(5) Trump bans chokeholds
Donald Trump signs order on police reform
The New Daily
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning the use
of chokeholds but rejected calls to defund or dismantle the police.
Mr Trump said the order, which he signed after meeting families of
victims of police brutality, is aimed at encouraging best practices and
tracking officers with excessive use of force complaints.
But one civil rights group slammed the order for not going far enough to
end police violence and racism.
Mr Trump was also criticised for using the ceremony in the White House
Rose Garden on Wednesday morning (Australian time) as a campaign rally
following weeks of protests prompted by the death of George Floyd.
"Today is about pursuing common sense and fighting, fighting for a cause
like we seldom get the chance to fight for," Mr Trump said.
Under the order, police will have to employ the latest standards for use
of force and improve information sharing so that officers with poor
records are not hired without their backgrounds being known.
They will also be required to have social workers with them when
responding to non-violent cases involving drug addiction and homelessness.
"Americans want law and order, they demand law and order," Mr Trump said.
He offered his condolences to the families of victims of recent violence
at the hands of police and others, and vowed to pursue justice.
But he opposed calls to "defund the police" by reimagining or even
dismantling police departments.
"Without police, there’s chaos," Mr Trump said.
"Americans believe we must support the brave men and women in blue who
police our streets and keep us safe.
"Americans also believe we must improve accountability, increase
transparency and invest more resources in police training, recruiting
and community engagement."
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights head Vanita Gupta said:
"While the order takes some steps forward, it is an inadequate response
to a nation demanding sweeping, bold action."
In his public comments and on Twitter, Mr Trump has called for
crackdowns on protesters and emphasised a forceful and militarised
response to the social unrest.
Opinion polls show widespread concerns among Americans about police
brutality.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives is expected to vote later in
June on sweeping legislation put forward by the Congressional Black
Caucus to rein in police misconduct.
-with AAP
(6) Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Choke Holds ‘Unless An Officer’s
Life Is At Risk’
Jack Brewster
Updated Jun 16, 2020, 02:26pm EDT
President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday on police reform that
bans choke holds "unless an officer’s life is at risk," increases
federal oversight of police departments and encourages departments to
move toward better practices on use of force, though the order falls
short of what activists are pushing for and ties its mandates to incentives.
Under the order, the federal government will require police departments
to ban chokeholds, the police maneuver used by the Derek Chauvin in the
killing of George Floyd, to receive certification that will allow them
to access federal grants.
It will also create a database to track police officers with several
misconduct violations and push for departments to involve mental
healthcare workers on calls dealing with homelessness, mental illness
and addiction.
Activist groups are expected to criticize the order as not doing enough:
in the wake of George Floyd’s death, protest groups, including Black
Lives Matter, have pushed for sweeping reform, including "defunding the
police."
Trump decried the "radical and dangerous efforts to dissolve our police"
during prepared remarks in the Rose Garden before he—surrounded by law
enforcement—signed the order Tuesday, adding "without police, there is
chaos."
After discussing the policy details of his executive order, the
president dedicated much of his remarks Tuesday toward decrying
protesters and attacking the record of his predecessor, former president
Barack Obama, and former vice president and presumptive Democratic
nominee Joe Biden.
Trump has rallied to the defense of police officers and argued Tuesday
that police misconduct was the the work of a small percentage of police
officers: "They’re very tiny. I use the word tiny. It’s a very small
percentage. But you have them. But nobody wants to get rid of them more
than the really good and great police officers."
Trump said Tuesday that his executive order would go "hand in hand" with
the bill Senate Republicans are working on—and implored GOP leadership
to get a bill done quickly. Led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Republican
senators are working to put together a bill that would increase training
to focus on de-escalation tactics and lessen the potential for choke
holds, among other measures. House Democrats are debating a bill that
would ban choke holds outright, and no-knock warrants in drug cases, as
was used in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville,
Kentucky, in March, and increase police accountability, among other
reform measures.
Democrats criticized the order for not going far enough: "While the
president has finally acknowledged the need for policing reform, one
modest executive order will not make up for his years of inflammatory
rhetoric and policies designed to roll back the progress made in
previous years," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in
a statement.
(7) Democrats in key battleground states warn against Annexation
Battleground state Democrats warn against annexation after AIPAC
greenlights criticism
Eight Senate candidates in battleground states are warning Israel
against annexing the West Bank after the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee greenlit the criticism.
Bryant Harris
Jun 15, 2020
A slew of Democratic Senate candidates hoping to unseat Republican
incumbents in key battleground states came out today against Israeli
efforts to annex parts of the West Bank.
The left-leaning lobby group J Street touted their warnings as part of
its ongoing campaign to deter annexation. The rival American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) took the unusual step of greenlighting
Democrats to push back against annexation without fear of repercussion,
so long as the criticism stops there, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
reported last week.
"Unilateral Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank undermines
efforts to achieve a two-state solution," said Jon Ossoff, who hopes to
unseat Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in November. Ossoff said, "A
sustainable and humane resolution of conflict can only be achieved by
diplomacy. Annexation would represent an abandonment of the peace
process established in Oslo in 1993, and it would confirm the failure of
contemporary Israeli and Palestinian political leaders to resolve these
disputes diplomatically."
The other Democratic Senate candidates in competitive states to come out
against annexation include Cal Cunningham of North Carolina, Jaime
Harrison of South Carolina, Amy McGrath of Kentucky, Al Gross of
Arkansas, MJ Hegar of Texas, Sara Gideon of Maine, Theresa Greenfield of
Iowa and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a failed 2020
presidential candidate favored to win the state’s primary against
progressive Andrew Romanoff later this month.
"The two-state solution remains the best way to achieve long-term peace
and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians," said Hickenlooper,
adding, "I oppose unilateral actions that move us away from this goal,
including annexation of the West Bank. In the Senate, I will continue to
advocate for advancing Israel’s security and stability and work with J
Street toward achieving lasting peace in the region."
Hickenlooper, who has historically boasted warm ties with AIPAC, joins
28 Democratic senators who have issued similar warnings. The confluence
of AIPAC-friendly centrists, such as Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware and
Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, adapting J Street’s position on annexation
illustrates the extent to which annexation has become a partisan issue
within both the United States and Israel.
Unlike J Street, AIPAC has not taken a formal position on annexation.
However, AIPAC President Betsy Berns Korn praised President Donald
Trump’s peace plan, which calls for Israel to annex its West Bank
settlements and the entire Jordan Valley, at the organization’s annual
conference in March.
But recently, the Donald Trump administration has sought to dissuade
Israel from moving forward with annexation next month amid ambivalence
from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners in the Knesset.
Netanyahu said today that the Trump administration wants Defense
Minister Benny Gantz, who leads the rival Blue and White faction as part
of a power-sharing deal, on board with the annexation plans before
proceeding. His remarks came after he met with US Ambassador to Israel
David Friedman and Gantz over the weekend.
The prime minister also hinted that he may not proceed with annexation
next month despite previous reports that he had initially pushed for
July in case former US Vice President Joe Biden defeats Trump in
November. J Street made its first-ever presidential endorsement in April
and backed Biden, who also opposes annexation.
(8) Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem
Hashemite white paper says Arabs were first inhabitants of Jerusalem
A white paper by the Amman-based think tank the Royal Aal al-Bayt
Institute for Islamic Thought suggests 5,000 years of continuous Arab
presence in Jerusalem, specifying the Hashemite custodianship of
Christian and Muslim holy sites in the city.
Daoud Kuttab
@daoudkuttab
Jun 15, 2020
At a time when the right-wing leaders of Israel are contemplating
annexing further parts of the Palestinian occupied territories, a
referenced and documented white paper has been produced and published by
the prestigious Amman-based think tank Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for
Islamic Thought, documenting Arab presence in Jerusalem for over three
millennia and specifying the Hashemite custodianship of Christian and
Muslim holy sites in the city.
"The Arabs were the first inhabitants of Palestine in history, including
in Jerusalem," the 108-page paper begins. It references archaeological
records where Jerusalem is mentioned by name in the Amarna
Correspondence, a series of diplomatic letters between Canaanite
city-state kings and their Egyptian overlords during the 14th-century
B.C. It shows pictures of cuneiform tablets that were uncovered in Egypt
in the late 19th century.
Mahdi Abdulhadi, founder and director of the Jerusalem-based PASSIA
think tank, told Al-Monitor that the content of the paper represents a
knowledge brief that genuinely reflects the reality in a scientific way,
articulating the historic narrative that the streets and quarters of the
Old City of Jerusalem have witnessed. He said, "This paper is the legal
and legitimate umbrella reflecting what the Hashemites have been
entrusted with since the Arab Renaissance till today in a way that
ensures the national Palestinian narrative with the Arab and
international one in protecting the city’s Arab identity."
The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, an Islamic
nongovernmental institute, has been headed since 2000 by Prince Ghazi
bin Muhammad, the personal envoy and special adviser to Jordan's King
Abdullah II.
The paper moves from archaeological discoveries to biblical records,
quoting Genesis 10:1-20 that shows "the Arabs, Hamites, Canaanites and
Jebusites were the original inhabitants of the land of Palestine,
including the area of Jerusalem." Canaanites and Jebusites were there
long before (at least 2,000 years before) the Jews, and even long before
Judaism was revealed.
While the focused biblical references are valuable in debunking various
attempts to use religious text to deny Arab connections to the city, not
everyone was excited about using the Bible to authenticate connectivity.
Bernard Sabella, an elected member of the Palestinian legislature
representing Jerusalem’s Palestinian Christians, told Al-Monitor that
the historic documents in the paper reflect the popular religious and
official Palestinian position in support of the custodian role of the
Hashemites. "The importance of this paper is that it comes at a time
that the Israelis are doing their utmost to change the status quo in
Jerusalem with special emphasis on Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif.
Sabella said that the paper debunks Israeli claims questioning the
support of Christian leaders to the Jordanian Hashemites in guaranteeing
the status quo in the holy city.
Former Palestinian ambassador to France Hind Khoury told Al-Monitor that
while she is a strong supporter of the Hashemite custodianship of
Jerusalem, she is not a big fan of using biblical texts for documenting
the history of Jerusalem. "Biblical books are books of faith to the
believers, and archaeologists including Israelis have shown
contradictions between events in religious texts and the documented
history of our region."
Khoury is concerned that religious groups, especially Christian
Zionists, have been using biblical texts for their own purposes to
justify support for the occupation and annexation. "I am always worried
about the danger of mixing between religion and politics. This has been
the way that Zionists and their supporters have gone because it is easy
to use religion to prove any point of view."
The Jewish presence in Jerusalem is also not ignored. The word "Jew" is
mentioned 65 times in the paper and the term "Jewish" is referred in
document 34 times. The paper dedicates a section to the Jewish presence
between 1000 B.C. and 600 B.C. talking about the Prophet-King David who
conquered Jerusalem, which became the capital of his kingdom. The paper
also talks about Jerusalem as a mixed Jewish city in the period 539
B.C.-37 B.C.
The white paper acknowledges that the religious demographics of
Jerusalem changed dramatically in the 20th century. In 1947, the city’s
population was 33,600 Arabs and 2,400 Jews.
Yonatan Mizrachi, CEO of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli nongovernmental
organization working to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect
ancient sites, told Al-Monitor, "While the historic timeline looks fine
to me, I disagree that Arabs have been here before the time of King
David. I don't think that Canaanites are the Arabs’ ancestors."
As to the history of Jerusalem by religions, the authors of the paper
state that "Jews have been there for about 3,000 years, Christians have
been there for about 2,000 years and Muslims have been there for about
1,400 years. However, Islam has been dominant in Jerusalem for 1,210 out
of the last 1,388 years. This is more than the period of Jewish
domination over the last 3,020 years (953 years) or Christian domination
over the last 2,000 years (417 years)."
In summary, the white paper argues that contrary to the misperception
that Islam is a stranger to Jerusalem, Islam has been dominant in
Jerusalem for longer in total than either Christianity or Judaism,
despite being the youngest of the three religions.
Reverend David Rihani, deputy chair of the Jordan Evangelical Council
and the head of the Assemblies of God Churches in Jordan, told
Al-Monitor that the role of Hashemites to Jerusalem is well known and
appreciated by all Arab Christians. "We strongly support and endorse the
Hashemite custodianship and have been impressed by the high level of
interest and support His Majesty the King has shown to Jerusalem’s
Christian as well as Muslim sites."
The Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif — and by extension the whole ancient
city of Jerusalem — is one of Islam’s three holy sites. The paper
refutes the often-repeated argument by those who claim that Jerusalem is
not mentioned in the Islamic holy book. According to the classical
commentaries on the Quran, "the city," "the land," "the Holy Land," "the
Mount," "the Temple" and "the Olive" all refer to Jerusalem, or places
in Jerusalem, the paper states.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.