Israeli efforts to direct pilgrimage flights .. Palestinians 48: We refuse to be a bridge of normalization with Saudi Arabia

Mohammed Mohsen Wedd - Umm al-Fahm

Political parties and national forces inside the Palestinian community unanimously agreed to confront the efforts of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to operate Hajj and Umrah flights directly from Ben Gurion Airport to Jeddah Airport, stressing its refusal to be a bridge of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

This refusal comes after the statements of Likud leader Knesset member Mickey Zohar - as part of the party's campaign for the Knesset elections that will be held next March 2 - that Netanyahu seeks in coordination with Riyadh to operate Hajj and Umrah trips for the 48 Palestinians from Ben Gurion Airport in Lod directly to Saudi Arabia.

Zohar's remarks preceded Israeli Interior Minister Arieh Deri’s announcement of granting visas to Israelis who want to visit Saudi Arabia for religious and commercial purposes, which came in conjunction with President Donald Trump's announcement of his plan for peace in the Middle East.

The 48 Palestinians claim that the statements of Israeli officials - especially Netanyahu - come in a political and electoral context, and an attempt to win over voters from the 48 Palestinians, as well as to exert pressure on Jordan, which has custody of pilgrims and sacred places, because of its anti-conservative stance on the "deal of the century".

Tens of thousands of 48 Palestinians travel annually to Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage, through Jordanian guardianship of pilgrims and granting them temporary Jordanian passports, according to the agreement concluded in 1978 between the Israeli government and the late Jordanian King Hussein Bin Talal.

Elections and normalization
The head of the Freedoms Committee, a member of the Arab Supreme Follow-up Committee in the Palestinian Interior, Sheikh Kamal Al-Khatib, said that Netanyahu does not hesitate to use any means and employ any issue that might be in favor of his return to head the government, and escape from files that concern corruption, breach of trust, and the trial he faces, and he has brought him to prison .

Al-Khatib believes that the Likud and Netanyahu move to arrange 48 Palestinian travel for Hajj and Umrah directly to Saudi Arabia from Ben Gurion Airport comes in the context of employing religious feelings to obtain electoral gains, to be a political lever to push the train of normalization with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and Arab countries.

Al-Khatib explained to Al-Jazeera Net that many Arab regimes - whether in Sudan, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain - were recruited to be the savior and lifeline of Netanyahu from the files of corruption, through harmony with his presentation in the "Deal of the Century", to rush towards normalization, in order to win the friendliness of Israel and who Then he won Washington's satisfaction.

Pressure and demonization
The same position was expressed by the leader of the Islamic movement, former deputy for the joint list, Masoud Ghanayem, who confirmed that the Likud party's statements came in the context of the Knesset election campaign.

Ghanayem sees the statements as an attempt to delegitimize the joint list, demonize the Arab representatives, promote them because they do nothing for the Palestinians of 48, exert pressure on Jordan, and waven to withdraw its guardianship from pilgrims and sacred places if they remain on their conservative stances of the American peace plan.

In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Ghanayem asserts that the Likud's electoral plans regarding the 48 Palestinians and boast about relations of normalization with Arab and Gulf countries cannot be separated from the American peace plan in the Middle East.

Domination and sovereignty
He stressed that the announcement of the Israeli Interior grant visas for those who want to travel to Saudi Arabia and Netanyahu's aspiration to organize direct travel for pilgrims from the Palestinians of 48 comes in the context of an Israeli project for domination and sovereignty over the Middle East without Tel Aviv paying the price.

The leader of the Islamic movement explained that trying to take into account the needs of Muslims and religions that the speech of Netanyahu and the Likud tries to communicate is more like poking poison in honey.

And he explained that it is not possible for those who race to judaize Islamic and Christian holy sites and push towards the temporal and spatial division of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to build the synagogue and the alleged "temple", to be keen on the feelings and needs of Muslims in the two sanctuaries in Mecca and Medina.

Mecca tour
At a time when the Jewish parties were busy with Netanyahu's statements regarding normalization and the possibility of direct pilgrim convoys to Saudi Arabia, the delegation of the Hajj and Umrah Committee for the Palestinians of 48, accompanied by officials from the Jordanian Ministry of Endowments, was touring Mecca and Medina, where they signed contracts with tourism and hotel companies for the Spring and Ramadan Umrah The Hajj season, as confirmed by the head of the Monitoring Committee of the Hajj and Umrah Society, Sheikh Hashem Abdel Rahman, for Al Jazeera Net.

Abdel-Rahman described "Likud's statements regarding the possibility of 48 Palestinians traveling for Hajj and Umrah from Ben Gurion Airport directly to the airports in Saudi Arabia, as a political par excellence, and we in the Hajj and Umrah committees have no connection with them, and the final say in this matter is the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

Abdel-Rahman rejected Netanyahu and Likud's approach to exploiting the Hajj and Umrah file on the issue of the Israeli elections, calling for not using religion and pilgrimage as a political leverage, stressing that Netanyahu - who promotes himself as a tourism agent for Hajj and Umrah, in an attempt to win votes from Palestinians 48 - is lying and misleading, and is ignorant of things When proposing religious tourism packages at cheap prices for Saudi Arabia.