Global Muslim Brotherhood Groups Condemn Israel In Current Violence; No Mention Of Hamas

React­ing to the vio­lent clash­es between Pales­tini­ans and the Israeli police on Jerusalem’s Tem­ple Mount and the armed con­flict between mil­i­tant Pales­tin­ian groups and Israel, Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups issued state­ments call­ing on Euro­pean insti­tu­tions and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to con­demn Israeli actions and to inter­cede on behalf of Pales­tin­ian cit­i­zens in East Jerusalem. Israeli actions in the con­flict are described in terms such as “ter­ror,” “eth­nic cleans­ing,” and “des­e­cra­tion,” while no con­dem­na­tion or men­tion is made of Hamas rock­et attacks direct­ed at Israeli civil­ians. Accord­ing to a press release by the Brus­sels-based Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO):

May 12, 2021 We call on the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union and Mem­ber States to ful­fil their oblig­a­tions to con­demn these acts of aggres­sion and ter­ror against civil­ians. The rights of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple to keep their hous­es in Sheikh Jar­rah, and reaf­firm the rights of indi­vid­u­als to peace­ful­ly and freely wor­ship at the holy site of the Al-Aqsa mosque which must be unequiv­oical­ly [sic!] respect­ed and protected.

Read the rest here.

FEMYSO has also called evic­tions of Pales­tin­ian fam­i­lies in the con­test­ed Sheikh Jar­rah neigh­bor­hood of East Jerusalem “clear acts of vio­lence irrec­on­cil­able with inter­na­tion­al law and human rights” and said that Pales­tini­ans lacked oppor­tu­ni­ties to pro­tect those rights. FEMYSO is the youth/student arm of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM), rep­re­sent­ing the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood  (GMB) in Europe. Over the years, FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and many oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al lev­el. The CEM itself has issued a sim­i­lar­ly word­ed state­ment on the sit­u­a­tion in Jerusalem via Facebook.

Two days pri­or, the Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain, among the most promi­nent Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions in the Unit­ed King­dom and usu­al­ly act­ing in con­cert with the GMB, released a state­ment call­ing on the British gov­ern­ment to affirm its com­mit­ment to uphold a UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion that demands Israel stop set­tle­ment activ­i­ty, also claim­ing silence would “test” the Unit­ed Kingdom’s claim to moral leadership:

May 10, 2021 In 2014, the House of Com­mons recog­nised Pales­tine as a state. We call on our Gov­ern­ment to out­line its com­mit­ment to the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 2334, which demands that Israel stops set­tle­ment activ­i­ty in Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries (occu­pied since 1967) and ful­fills its oblig­a­tions as an occu­py­ing pow­er under the Fourth Gene­va Con­ven­tion. (…) The UK gov­ern­ment has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to con­demn these rep­re­hen­si­ble actions. The silence amidst a grow­ing cho­rus of glob­al con­dem­na­tion would once again test the UK’s claim to moral leadership.

Read the rest here.

The main Ger­man GMB umbrel­la Deutsche Mus­lim­is­che Gemein­schaft has post­ed a state­ment about the sit­u­a­tion in Israel to its Face­book page, in which it expressed con­cern over poten­tial war crimes on behalf of the Israeli admin­is­tra­tion and accused it of des­e­crat­ing the Al-Aqsa Mosque:

May 11, 2021 UN spokesman Rupert Colville fears pos­si­ble war crimes in the actions of the Israeli occu­py­ing pow­er in East Jerusalem. It would­n’t be the first time the Israeli gov­ern­ment has bro­ken inter­na­tion­al treaties and vio­lat­ed human rights. (…) It is unac­cept­able that the Pales­tini­ans are being denied basic human rights and that we must all see the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the three holy mosques of Islam, des­e­crat­ed by the vio­lence of Israeli secu­ri­ty forces.

Read the rest here.

On 8 May 2021, the Mus­lim Asso­ci­a­tion of Britain (MAB), the main orga­ni­za­tion of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the UK, issued a com­mu­niqué on Face­book demand­ing the UK gov­ern­ment pres­sure Israel and that any action need­ed to go fur­ther than the one offered by the UK For­eign Office:

Any action needs to go fur­ther than the usu­al lip ser­vice and both­sidesism offered by the For­eign Office. The UK must apply pres­sure on Israel to ensure the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of Pales­tini­ans liv­ing in Jerusalem and specif­i­cal­ly the Sheikh Jar­rah neigh­bour­hood whose res­i­dents are being sub­ject­ed to eth­nic cleans­ing through forced displacement.

Read the rest here.

In its state­ment, the MAB also called on its mem­bers and all Mus­lims to local­ly mobi­lize to let the British gov­ern­ment know that they stood with the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple in this “act of vio­lence by Israel.”