President Bush said today that creating a Palestinian state has “always” been part of the U.S. vision for peace in the Middle East as long as Israel’s right to exist is respected, but Yasser Arafat’s religious leader say Muslims should not cooperate in the war on terrorism.
Bush said he stood firmly behind a roadmap to peace crafted by an international panel headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell and said officials were “working diligently” to end a year-long cycle of violence.
“First things first, when it comes to the Middle East, we’ve got to get to Mitchell,” he said, calling those recommendations “a viable blueprint that most of the world agrees with is a necessary path to ultimately solving the problems of the Middle East.
Officials in Washington said the U.S. had planned to begin pushing a major Mideast peace initiative including a Palestinian state just before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The New York Times reported today that the decision to move ahead with the new initiative was made in early September at a meeting of the National Security Council and that Bush, now preoccupied with forging a global coalition against terrorism, may still make a forceful declaration on the Middle East crisis.
“I fully understand that progress is made in centimeters in the Middle East. And we believe we’re making some progress,” Bush said.
On Friday, during a sermon in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian Authority mufti, Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri, called upon Muslims to oppose the U.S. coalition against terrorism and encouraged them not to fear the U.S.
“First, there is a religious legal rule that man is innocent, namely, in Islam, a human being is innocent until he is proven guilty,” Sabri said. “It is not allowed to blame a human being and then tell him ‘prove you’re innocent.’ Therefore we tell America: ‘It is forbidden to accuse a person before the beginning of the investigation.'”
Sabri suggested “other elements inside America” were responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
“‘It is forbidden for a Muslim to go against another Muslim, against his life, his properties, and his honor (wife),'” the mufti said in quoting Muhammed. “It is forbidden from the religious legal aspect that a Muslim would kill another Muslim; this killing is regarded as a severe sin. There are tens of verses, and hundreds of traditions that forbid it. It is far more sinful for a Muslim to ask for the help of a non-Muslim to kill another Muslim. This is a grave heresy.”
Sabri’s sermon was translated from Arabic by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
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