OIC Mecca Conference and the Issues of Bahrain and Palestine | ||
OIC Mecca Conference and the Issues of Bahrain and Palestine The emergency meeting of the Islamic heads of states commenced its work in Mecca at a time when Saudi Arabia and its allies at the OIC sought to turn the issue of Syria’s suspension from OIC into the main subject to be addressed by the conference. Important matters such as the issue of Palestine, the crisis in Bahrain, the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar and destruction of mosques in Mali were marginalized at the OIC meeting, but the issue of Syria’s suspension at the OIC was put on the agenda. This is despite the fact that the Palestinian self-rule authority led by Mahmoud Abbas as well as the Hamas movement had called on the OIC to seriously address the issue of Palestine. The elected government of Palestine in the Gaza Strip called on the Mecca conference to adopt decisions in congruity with the status and prestige of occupied Qods city and al-Aqsa mosque. According to the Palestinian information center a political adviser to the elected prime minister of Palestine, Ismail Haniyeh had emphasized that the liberation of the occupied Qods city was a shared responsibility of all Muslims and not merely the Palestinian people and expressed hope that the Mecca summit would adopt practical measures in this regard, because mere releasing of statements and expression of viewpoints would not hamper the Zionist regime’s activities aimed at Judaizing this Islamic city. Heedlessness to the strategic issue of the Muslim and Arab world takes place in spite of the fact that Saudi Arabia hosted the meeting at the level of heads of states for the aim of solidarity. In the meantime, the Zionist regime in the past few weeks decided to turn part of Muslims’ holy sites into a park for the Jews, destroying part of the surrounding area of al-Aqsa Mosque for constructing the Solomon Temple, expanding the Jewish settlements and impeding Muslims from going to al-Aqsa Mosque with the exception of certain occasions. These decisions were made simultaneous with the silence adopted by the media of Arab countries and the world of Islam and the inattention of Arab and Muslim states including Saudi Arabia as one of the strategic countries of the Arab world. At the outset of the meeting, the OIC Secretary General, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu expressed concern over the Islamic identity of Qods city and al-Aqsa Mosque,
calling for extraordinary measures to be adopted in the face of the Zionist regime’s activities. Another crisis that was not reflected by the media of Arab and Muslim countries is the ongoing clashes in Bahrain between the pro-democracy opposition groups and the ruling system. Within this framework, the biggest opposition group in Bahrain called on the participating countries in the Mecca conference to attach special significance to the Bahraini crisis. According to a website affiliated to the Bahraini al-Wefaq Society, the political group released a statement calling on Islamic states to present political solutions based on justice and in this way help the Bahraini people take steps for terminating the political crisis as well as its legal, economic and social consequences. Meanwhile, a member of al-Wefaq Society, Hadi al-Mousavi referred to the detention of 1,400 political prisoners in Bahrain within one-and-a-half years describing it as the highest number of political prisoners in the world with regard to the less than a million population of Bahrain. But on the first day of the foreign ministerial meeting in Mecca, the foreign ministers offered the proposal for the suspension of Syria’s OIC membership. The OIC foreign ministers despite Iran’s protest to the proposal decided to suspend Syria’s membership in protest to what they described as the Syrian government’s handling of the current crisis in Syria. If the OIC continues its currents policies, not only it would not serve the Muslims, but also will do disservice to those who have pinned their hopes on this giant Islamic organization. | ||
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