Protest outside Saudi embassy over Jerusalem decision? Ridiculous, says Khairy

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has dismissed as “ridiculous” a prominent Muslim activist’s call to protest outside Saudi Arabia’s embassy, and not the United State’s embassy, over the US’s decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Khairy, who was among the thousands of people who gathered in front of the US embassy yesterday to protest against the US government, argued that the announcement to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital had come from US President Donald Trump himself.

Two days ago, Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa of the Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) said that Muslim groups were barking up the wrong tree if they staged a protest outside the US embassy here over Washington’s decision.

The academician argued that Muslims should be training their guns at Saudi Arabia, adding that the kingdom was not only Trump’s closest ally in the Middle East but had made it possible for the US to announce the decision in the face of international protests.

“Trump would not have made such an announcement unless he had regional backers. I think almost everybody knows about the story of Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, as he is popularly known. The New York Times has reported from multiple sources how the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia had told Mahmoud Abbas to accept the terms; that if there was no Jerusalem, then there was no return. Abbas was told by MBS to make way for someone who will,” Farouk was reported as saying.

Khairy said: “It’s quite ridiculous because the statement came from the president of the US.

“There is no point trying to speculate about geopolitical motives when it’s obvious that the statement was made by the president of a particular country and we went to that particular country’s embassy to give them a memorandum,” the youth and sports minister told reporters at PWTC.

Israel has long considered Jerusalem, which hosts holy sites for Islam, Christianity and Judaism, as its “eternal and indivisible” capital.

But Western governments have snubbed Israeli calls to move their embassies to Jerusalem, wary that it would further complicate the crisis in the Middle East and any delicate peace plan for Palestine.

Trump’s announcement is a reversal of its decades-old policy of not recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It also comes in the wake of a strong alliance between Trump and the US’s traditional Arab allies including Saudi Arabia, both of which have been leading a so-called Gulf anti-terror pact. -FMT