MB Chair: Netanyahu Not Welcomed In Egypt

MB Chair Mohamed Mahdi Akef refused the visit of “Israeli terrorist” Benjamin Netanyahu to Egypt “at a time when the hands of Israelis and their political and military leadership remain stained by the blood of our Palestinian brothers in Gaza,” and while criminal and brutal violations committed by the Israeli occupation continue in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
 
Akef considered the visit “useless” pointing out in his statement that Netanyahu’s visit to Egypt follows the announcement of his new government’s fixed stances which included the ruling out of the Arab Peace Initiative adopted by the 2002 Arab League Summit in Beirut, withdrawal from Golan Heights, and the Palestinian state within the ’67 borders based on the “two-state solution” although Palestinians had considered it the minimum solution for both sides.
 
“The Egyptian government is, no doubt, mistaken in its reception of this criminal despite his declared stances.  The government should have, instead, announced a strong stance expressing its solidarity with the Palestinian people in their current trials of siege in Gaza and displacement in the West Bank,” Akef said.
 
“How could Cairo receive such a criminal at a time when his government has launched its worst campaign of demolition and displacement in Eastern Jerusalem and while thousands of Palestinians are being displaced in Jerusalem and dozens of Jewish synagogues are being built around the sanctified mosque in Jerusalem, the first of the two qiblahs (direction which Muslims face when praying) and third sanctified mosque?,” Akef added.
 
Akef pointed out that the Egyptian people “don’t welcome Netanyahu’s visit” calling on Egyptians to declare their anger over the contamination of Egypt’s pure lands by Netanyahu and the Israeli officials accompanying him.
 
In the end of his statement, Akef called on the Egyptian government to reconsider its relations with Israel based on the given Zionist policies and stances and Egyptian national interests and to protect Egypt’s eastern front for the sake of Egypt’s national security which, in turn, requires Egypt’s further support for the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza.
 
Akef further called on the Arab and Islamic peoples to bear their responsibilities towards the merits of the Gaza siege and judization of Jerusalem “in a way that suits the level of Zionist impudence” and amid the utter silence on the part of regimes and governments.”
 
Cairo
May 11, 2009