It is with regret that the Lewisham Islamic Centre felt compelled yet again during the holy month of Ramadan to address Israeli injustices in Palestine. It is seemingly now customary that not a Ramadan goes by without an IDF incursion and desecration of Al-Aqsa, under the guise of “security” concerns, to deliberately provoke Palestinian worshippers and Muslim sensibilities. Not content with its decades old illegal, heinous, inhumane and condemnable occupation of Palestinian lands, the Zionist entity, whom Amnesty International charges with apartheid, now routinely inures this depravity through injurious attacks on innocent worshippers in the beloved Al Aqsa on the holiest Muslim day (Friday) and in the holiest time of the year (Ramadan). We can only imagine what hell would be raised by the “defenders of freedom and human rights” were a church or synagogue be subjected to the same on any day, let alone one held sacrosanct.
The world has seen what collective action can achieve in response to the invasion and occupation of Ukraine. We ask what the difference here is other than Palestinian race and religion? Will the putative “defenders of freedom and human rights” only show interest when the Palestinians defend themselves against Israeli aggression and brutal attacks? Only then will the inevitable conveyor belt of banal condemnations arise against The Occupied and a call for restraint on “both sides” as though any sense of equation exists between stone-throwers and soldiers using lethal force. This is nothing but perversion of the greatest magnitude to detract from the underlining and glaring root issue which singly is the brutal Israeli occupation itself.
We call on the international community Ulama, scholars, intellectuals, and writers across the Muslim world to revivify their solidarity with the oppressed yet indomitable people of Palestine.
We ask Allah to bring peace and security to the Palestinians, to protect Al-Aqsa, and bring a swift end to the occupation.