An international organization of Muslim scholars has called on the international community and the Muslim world in particular to stand against Israel’s scheme to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
In a statement, Ali al-Qaradaghi, the secretary-general of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), lambasted the administration of President Donald Trump of the United States for supporting Israel in its annexation plans.
He also held Washington responsible for what he described as Tel Aviv's aggressive practices, the Palestinian Information Center reported on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a number of criminal indictments, has time and again announced that he would start plans for annexing more areas in the occupied West Bank on July 1, in accordance with Trump’s peace scheme, further infuriating Palestinians.
The American president officially unveiled his scheme, the so-called deal of the century, in January at the White House with Netanyahu on his side, while Palestinian representatives were not invited.
The proposal gives in to Israel’s demands while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders, enshrining the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allowing the regime to annex settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
Trump's highly provocative scheme, which further denies the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland, is also in complete disregard of UN Security Council resolutions and rejected by the vast majority of the international community.
Palestinian officials have already threatened to sever bilateral agreements with Tel Aviv if it goes ahead with the annexation that will definitely undermine the two-state solution. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already said that the US proposal “belongs to the dustbin of history.”
They say that the scheme allows the Tel Aviv regime to annex 30 to 40 percent of the West Bank, including the whole East Jerusalem al-Quds, which Palestinians view as the capital of their future independent state.
Elsewhere in his remarks on Monday, Qaradaghi warned that the Israel is currently exploiting the world’s preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the total US support for its action and the Arab nation’s impotence and silence to advance its land-grabbing plots in Palestine.
The IUMS chief also praised all the countries that support the Palestinian cause, particularly those that voiced their opposition to Israel’s expansionist projects.