CAIRO: The imam of the renowned al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem, called for assistance to protect the mosque from extremist Jewish aggression, allegedly planned to take place on Monday. Youssef Gomaa Salama, imam of the mosque and deputy chief director of the Supreme Islamic Foundation in Jerusalem, warned that Jewish groups will try to destroy the mosque in order to build a temple on its grounds. “Al-Aqsa Mosque is an Islamic Mosque built on God's orders. God's orders can not be changed by any other decisions or orders,” said Salama, who asked for support from Palestinian citizens in Jerusalem and Arab and Islamic nations to defend the mosque. As a means to maintain a strong Palestinian stand in general, he added to the plea a request for general educational, financial and political support for Palestine from its regional supporters. The Israeli Army met scattered Palestinian protests on Palestinian ground by increasing the military presence along the crossings north and north-east of Jerusalem as well as at the mosque itself, isolating the besieged area. These events come at a time of great turmoil and stirred tempers, as Palestinian leaders will open discussions in the United Nations on Tuesday on their bid for statehood. Dan Yakir, the legal council for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, expressed his concern as Israel is considering enforcing certain emergency laws to handle possible unrest following the events. “The plan to pass emergency law regulations is a real example of the potential for seriously harming rights when draconian measures are implemented,” Yakir stated on Saturday evening. The concrete proposals for an emergency law drafted by the Ministry for Public Security include measures that will seriously curtail rights of those arrested or detained. In short, they include prolonging the detention period of any suspect from three to 9 hours, creating large isolated holding area for the detained, and allowing the use of force towards not only the arrested, but now also the detained. The proposals would allow the police to detain a suspect, including minors, for 48 hours before bringing him before a judge. Adding to these events, the Palestinian UN bid is also sparking unrest between settlers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. In a protest coordinated by West Bank regional and settlers' council, settlers will march to Palestinian towns, protests will be held in Tel Aviv, and Israeli flags will be distributed and hung from settlers' cars. The settlers hope to manifest their attitude towards the Palestinian statehood bid, as well to what they perceive as a general anti-Israeli agenda in the UN. Far right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir was quoted by Ynet, saying “we're going to go out and make it clear to the Arabs who the home owners are. We're going to take the initiative and march towards Palestinian towns.” BM
