In this month, committed Muslims and even some non-Muslims do organize Quds rallies to highlight the Zionists continued illegal occupation of al-Masjid al-Aqsa. In 1979, Imam Khomeini declared the last Friday of Ramadan as Quds Day and called upon Muslims worldwide to hold rallies.
Since then, here in Nigeria our leader Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky has been in the forefront organizing these rallies. Today Quds-Day rallies have become a global phenomenon. These rallies have become an important component of the committed Muslims struggle in Ramadan for truth and justice in a world dominated by oppression and illegality.
Indeed the importance of Quds masjid and Palestine to Muslims can not be over emphasize. It is the first qibla of the Muslims for worship and currently the third most important Masjid after the Haramain in Saudi Arabia. Al-Quds or Jerusalem is at the very heart of Islam and the Muslim Ummah. Its status at any given time reflects the general health of the entire body of the Muslims. Hence the parasites strike at the very heart whenever the historical situation makes it possible.
The defeat of the Uthmaniyyah State and the emergence of small nation-states in the heartland of Islam after the First World War created just such a situation for the birth of Israel. It would be tedious to recall the mandate period of the British rule, the emergence of Zionism, the Balfour declaration (1917), the illegal Jewish migration to Palestine, and the final drama of partition and the birth of the UNs illegitimate child the State of Israel, which the Soviet Union recognised ahead of the United States. The fact is that the Zionists had no rights in Palestine and that the Israeli State has no legitimacy in history, law or religion (except for the Zionist mythology). It is stolen property and must be returned to its people, the Muslims, as soon as the Muslims recover from their self-inflicted wounds of nationalism.
Having said that, we should also refresh our minds of the atrocities daily being committed by the Zionist entity. Of recent Zionist Israels relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip on the eve of Ramadan has killed 17 Palestinians and injured 110 others in three days of strikes.
Under an Israeli and Egyptian siege since 2007, the two million inhabitants of Gaza Strip are living in appalling conditions. There is extreme poverty and disease because of lack of food and clean drinking water; 90 % of Gazas water is contaminated. Few medicines are available since the Zionists would not allow anything to go in to the tiny besieged Strip. The Zionist regime has subjected the Palestinians to collective punishment, an illegal act under international law. But the US (Israels patron saint), prevents any censure of this illegitimate entity in the Middle East.
Upon all these brutal suppression of the Palestinians, the present administration of Buhari has the temerity to invite the PM of the illegal state to witness its coronation for a second term.
Unfortunately, we have ignorant Nigerians wishing to welcome him to Abuja, totally unaware of the lurking dangers! Some highly placed people in this government are publically proclaiming that "Nigeria needs Israel to combat terrorism." The sad irony is this; Israel and the USA are the brains behind most terror organisations around the world, including ISIS. And we have not forgotten their participation in the perpetuation of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Those Israeli helicopter pilots who crashed in Yola, carrying weapons and $6 million for Boko Haram is still fresh in our minds! Wake up from your slumber, Nigerians! In September 2015, over 100,000 British citizens signed a petition, demanding the UK government to arrest the war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes, and crimes against humanity, upon his arrival in London.
Instead of President Buhari to take cue of his counterpart in South Africa in degrading its embassy in Tel Aviv, the capital of the illegal Zionist state, he is busy courting its association, unlike the other Presidents Nigeria had before him. Though this has not come to us as a surprise, because of the involvement of Israel in Zaria genocide of December 2015 carried out by this evil regime. We will therefore like to use this opportunity to reiterate our demand for the freedom of our incarcerated Leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, his wife and hundreds others still in illegal detention.
The talk of Greater Israel and eternal capital will only hasten the day of their ultimate fate. We call upon Muslims and other justice-loving people throughout the world to become part of this noble struggle because Quds day is the day of solidarity with the oppressed where ever they may be.
SIGNED:
SHEIKH ABDULHAMID BELLO ZARIA
26 Ramadan, 1440 (31/05/2019)