DOHA, 13 May - On his private visit to Qatar, Wasim Ahmad, a key-member of Congress, the ruling party in India and former parliamentarian, said in a public statement that the Palestinian issue concerns not the country's Muslims alone, but all Indians. "Palestine is a national issue in India", he affirmed reminding that the late chairman of the Palestinian National Authority, Yasser Arafat "used to get a rousing welcome like head of state when he visited New Delhi during the premiership of Indira Gandhi." When asked why India's stand on the Palestinian issue had come to fade away over the last years, Wasim Ahmad pointed out to global changes in foreign policies of the kind that induced some Arab countries to engage in relations with Israel. Also in Doha, Dr. Yussuf al-Qaradawi, on of the most prominent Muslim scholars worldwide, renewed his call to Muslims to confront those banks which bow to US threats and refuse to transfer funds to the Palestinian National Authority. His call, made during yesterday's sermon, came as a follow-up on last week's Islamic scholars' conference in Doha to gather support for the Palestinians trapped without revenues, food and medical supplies in the Occupied Territories due to the collective punishment pronounced on them by Western powers and Israel following Hamas' rise to power. Al-Qaradawi called for a boycott of the banks who refuse to transfer the financial aid granted by Muslim countries to the Palestinian Authority and warned European countries that their sanctions against the Hamas government would be met with a boycott of their products by Muslims all over the world, just as the Danish products had been boycotted following the blashpemous Danish cartoons earlier this year. Regarding Western countries request that Hamas should recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state on Palestinian territory, al-Qaradawi reminded that "these lands were taken away by Israel illegitimately and by force. If Hamas recognizes this occupation, we would loose respect for them."
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