Head of the Catholic community in Gaza Emanuel Mussalm has called for civil disobedience in Jerusalem in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize the city as Israel’s capital.
According to Mussalm, the civil unrest should spread to all the towns around Jerusalem once it’s begun. “All the intifadas, uprisings and marches are a good thing, but they are nothing more than storms, storms that cannot destroy Israel, which has become a house of stone. Only civil revolt is enough to destroy Israel and it must begin from Jerusalem now, not tomorrow,” said Mussalm.
According to the Catholic leader, Trump’s speech should be considered a positive one, “as it woke the Palestinian people and the Arab people and revealed the Oslo Accords as a lie and a scam.”
Trump’s speech also revealed the fact that the Security Council and international law are “lying” institutions, he claimed, “especially after the U.S. has used its veto dozens of times to protect Israel. The U.S. has humiliated Russia, Britain, France, China and the rest of the world just to support Israel and give it something it doesn’t deserve at all.”
Meanwhile, Adeeb al-Husseini, who holds the keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, said he is opposed to hosting the American vice president in the church. Al-Husseini is Muslim but according to tradition in Jerusalem, his family has held the keys to the church for over 850 years.
“The al-Husseini family is a Jerusalemite family,” said Adeeb. “It’s been responsible for the keys of the church since the days of Saladin and we’ve performed our duty throughout history and we’ll continue to do so in the future with dedication and devotion. So, in accordance with our religious and moral obligations to the holy places, I’m announcing that I won’t greet Pence at the church as an expression of our complete displeasure with the American president’s decision about the holy city, which is also the capital of Palestine.”
