TEL AVIV — The Palestinian Fatah movement continues to call for violence in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
A post on the official Facebook page of the Fatah movement, PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s party, shows a cartoon of a hand clutching an automatic weapon, accompanied by the text, “Strap on your weapon over your wound, and tomorrow you will awaken to a morning of freedom #Rage_for_Jerusalem #Rage_for_Al-Aqsa_Mosque #Jerusalem_our_capital #Jerusalem_the_capital_of_Palestine #HandsOffAlQuds.”
The image was posted on Fatah’s page on Thursday, according to Palestinian Media Watch, an NGO monitoring the Palestinian media.
Other Fatah posts that appeared on Facebook called for riots and rock throwing, again using the hashtags #Rage_for_Jerusalem, #Rage_for_Al-Aqsa_Mosque and #HandsOffAlQuds.
In addition, a top advisor to Palestinian Authority President Abbas called on Palestinians to start a religious war in response to the Trump declaration.
Supreme Shari’a judge and advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash said:
This crime that American President [Trump] committed [by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital] is not only against Palestine, but also against all of humanity, against the Muslims and against the Christians. How does he allow himself to give the keys to Jerusalem to those who are not its people? He wants to repeat the sin and crime of [former British Foreign Secretary] Balfour. Okay, Balfour has been relegated to the dustbin of history, and Palestine has remained, and Jerusalem has remained, and this one [Trump] will follow in [Balfour’s] footsteps. … How do the Muslims of the world allow this sin? How do the Christians of the world allow handing over the keys to [the Church of] the Holy Sepulchre to those who are not from Jerusalem, to those who are not Palestinians. … It could be that everyone knows and everyone assumes that this sin, which the American president committed, will open the gates of hell. … This decision is aggression against Islam, aggression against Christianity, aggression against the Quran, aggression against the New Testament, aggression against the Muslims, aggression against the Christians, aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, aggression against the Holy Sepulchre and aggression against humanity. And humanity – I don’t think it will allow [this] or be silent about this aggression. Humanity will not be silent. I’m sure about this and I’m sure that the nation will not be silent. The Muslims will act. … Jerusalem is ours and not yours. It has been ours for 5,000 years and it will remain ours until Allah will inherit the earth and whoever is on it.