Egypt's Brotherhood Slams Mufti Visit to Jerusalem
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday denounced the visit by the nation's grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, to Jerusalem, calling it as a "catastrophe" that undermined the Palestinian aspirations.
Gomaa, Egypt's highest religious authority, visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem on Wednesday for the first time, along with Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, King Abdullah II's cousin and adviser on religious issues.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state, in 1979, but its people and the intellectuals are largely opposed to any normalization of relations between the two nations pending the resolution of the Palestinian issue.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) said it "categorically rejects the visit to Jerusalem of Mufti Ali Gomaa whatever the reasons."
His visit is a "catastrophe and a blow to the national struggle that succeeded in defeating all attempts at normalisation (with Israel) in the past," the party said in a statement.
It said it was "unacceptable that this visit takes place after the revolution" that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in February last year, whose regime "enjoyed strong relations with the leaders of Israel (but) failed to impose normalisation on the Egyptian people."
The revolution "has led to an agreement between the popular and official positions rejecting all ties with the Israeli entity as long as it continues the occupation, colonisation and siege of Gaza," the statement added.
The FJP said the mufti, who is "in charge of the official religious institutions," should ensure that this such visits, which "harm the Palestinian cause," are not repeated.
Apart from the Al-Aqsa mosque, considered the third most sacred site in Islam, the two men also on Wednesday visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Jerusalem.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem, including the eastern Arab sector which it captured during the 1967 Six Day War, as its "eternal, undivided" capital, but the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
Source: Agence France Presse
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