Demonstrations and rallies were held in all major cities and towns after Friday prayers in which slogan-chanting protesters condemned what they called Islamabad’s deviation from its historical stance on the Palestine issue and a move towards recognising Israel and its illegal occupation of Jerusalem.
One such rally was held in Islamabad in which MMA leaders vowed to resist what they called “Islamabad’s attempts to recognize Israel”.
They highlighted the West’s crime of creating Israel on Palestinian lands and Tel Aviv’s gross violations of human rights and massacre of Palestinian Muslims to consolidate its occupation.
They warned President Musharraf of massive public reprisal in case Israel was extended any favour.
Women legislators belonging to the MMA condemned the Kasuri-Shalom meeting, terming it a deviation from the commitment of Quaid-i-Azam towards Palestine and Pakistan’s stated position on the issue for the past 58 years. Besides, this was done without taking people’s representatives into confidence.
A statement signed by Bilquis Saif, Aisha Munawar, Samia Raheel Qazi, Jamila Ahmed, Razia Aziz and Inayat Begum said the dictatorship of an individual had traded off the Muslim blood earlier in Afghanistan, then in Iraq as he was not answerable to anyone.
They warned the rulers not to take upon themselves the responsibility of entire Ummah as they had given nothing to their people except price hike and military operation in Waziristan, and to refrain from shaking hands with coercive forces.
Tracing the historical facts, they said the establishment of Israeli state and coercion, trespassing and capturing of Muslim resources had also been followed by negotiations.
In Quetta, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and the PML-N jointly staged a demonstration against the government for holding direct talks with Israel and rigging the local body polls.
The MMA and PML-N provincial leaders and activists took out a procession from Jamia Masjid Quetta after Jumma prayer and marched through the Shara-i-Iqbal and the Shara-i-Adalat before reaching in front of local press club where MNA Maulana Noor Muhammad (JUI-F), Maulana Matin Akundzada (JI) and Khuda Noor Khan (PML-N) addressed the rally.
They strongly criticized the government for initiating dialogue with Israel without taking parliament into confidence.
The speakers said that the direct meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Israel in Istanbul was deviation from the principled stand of Pakistan on the Palestine issue and it was the first step towards recognition of the Jewish state.
They asserted that an army-led government had no mandate to bring about changes in the country’s policy on sensitive issues like Kashmir, nuclear programme and Palestine. They said the government first backed out on the Kashmir issue and now it had opened talks with Israel. They said the talks negated the basic policy on the Palestine.
They claimed that the intruder forces in occupied Kashmir and Palestine were killing innocent local population and they have not stopped resorting to oppressive methods against the Palestinians and the Kashmiri freedom fighters.
They said the government’s opportunistic stance on both issues reflected that the rulers were taking dictation from US.