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Official Saudi cleric preaches Terrorism "a ruse" at hajj
 LINK HERE A TOP Saudi cleric has told Muslim pilgrims marking the climax of hajj that the west was using the global phenomenon of terrorism to scare people away from Islam and discredit legitimate Muslim causes. Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudeis, the state-appointed preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, also called today for stability in Iraq and said Islam was innocent of the charge of terrorism. "The campaign against Islam has become fierce and Muslims are being described in insulting terms to distort the image of Islam and scare people away from it," he told the 2.5 million pilgrims in a sermon to mark the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.He accused western countries of hypocrisy in promoting freedom and democracy, citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "When the oppressor Zionist enemy uses its war of smart bombs and tanks against our brothers in Palestine, violating our holy sites, that's not terrorism to their mind - but defending land, religion and honour is," Sudeis said. Here comes the biased rewriting of history Israel has largely crushed a Palestinian uprising launched in 2000 and Al-Haram al-Sharif, the site of Islam's holy Al-Aqsa mosque, Isn't this the temple mount, holy to Jews and Christians too? is in Arab East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in a war started by the arabs after its capture in the 1967 Middle East war in a move that has not been recognised internationally. Rantburg help, I thought it HAD been recognised internationally. Is this just plain wrong? Israel says military measures taken in Palestinian areas are self-defence against suicide bombings and other attacks. The Palestinian issue is often cited by Islamic militants, including those fighting the US-backed government in Iraq. Palestinians could have had a state but Arafat chose the intifada of 2000 instead. This isn't mentioned though. And islamic militants do not cite Palestinians when they attack Hindus in India/Kashmir, women not wearing the veil in Bangladesh, Christians and Animists in the Sudan and Nigeria, Buddhists in Thailand or Russians in Beslan. Posted by: Thiling Phairt7838 2006-01-10 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=139469 |