- Palestine
- June 22, 2010
- 3 minutes read
Israeli court endorses banishment of Jerusalemite MPs
The Israeli higher court on Sunday evening endorsed the Israeli occupation authority’s (IOA) decision to banish Jerusalemite MP Mohammed Abu Tir from occupied Jerusalem.
The ruling said that the decision could be reconsidered next September when another appeal against it is tabled.
The Hamas-affiliated change and reform parliamentary bloc said in a statement that the court ruling meant that the decision was political in nature and racist.
It added that the decision exposes the big scheme being implemented against occupied Jerusalem.
The first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council Dr. Ahmed Bahar, for his part, condemned the court ruling, warning Israel of its serious consequences.
He called on Arab and Islamic parliaments to immediately act to abort the Israeli deportation order, warning that the IOA was planning to evacuate Jerusalem of its leaders and indigenous population.
MP Ahmed Aton, who along with three other MPs was targeted by the deportation order, said that they would not obey the order and would remain in their hometown Jerusalem “because we consider ourselves the indigenous people and the occupiers are the aliens to the city and not us”.
He underlined in a televised statement on Sunday night that the decision was in violation of the international law and even the Israeli laws.
Aton called on the PA in Ramallah to intervene and pressure the IOA to revoke the decision.
Dr. Salah Al-Bardawil, one of the Hamas leaders in Gaza, said that the court ruling was null and void.
He said in a statement on Sunday that the banishment was no doubt enjoying American cover and support.
Bardawil lashed out at the Arab regimes for not issuing any denunciation of the decision and/or the judaization process in occupied Jerusalem.
Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, the chairman of the higher Islamic authority and one of the preachers in the Aqsa Mosque, said that the oppressive decision was heralding the start of the IOA policy of evacuating the holy city.
He pointed to the press report that the IOA was planning to exile 300 Jerusalemite figures, and described the conditions in occupied Jerusalem as “painful and critical”.
The Sheikh referred in this regard to the Israeli government decision to build 1,600 new settlement units in occupied Jerusalem, and the ongoing excavations under and around the Aqsa Mosque.