From the scholars to the leaders of the Arab world: free your peoples for Gaza!

More than 150 Islamic scholars from 50 countries, who gathered for 8 days at the Island of Democracy and Freedoms in Istanbul to address Gaza under the title "Islamic and Humanitarian Responsibility," announced to world public opinion, after the Friday prayer performed at the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque on the last day of their consultations, the conclusions they had reached. As we said earlier, this was neither the first nor the last event for Gaza by the scholars who took part in the meeting. Each of them, in his own lane or as the Union of Scholars, has been burning for Gaza from the very beginning. What makes this initiative special is that, at this stage of the matter, it makes the whole world feel that the Islamic world exists not only with its people, with its individual members, but also with its ulema. Yes, the Islamic world exists, and it makes its vitality felt with the pain, the shame and the cries it feels in the face of Gaza, and of course by trying to do what it can.

The introduction of the final declaration was read by Prof. Dr. Ali Erbaş, its Arabic by the President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Prof. Dr. Ali Muhyiddin al-Qaradaghi, and its Turkish by the President of the Islamic Scholars Foundation, Prof. Dr. Nasrullah Hacımüftüoğlu. The declaration read in front of the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque drew very intense interest from the local and foreign media. The crowd that had come out of the Friday prayer, chanting slogans here and there, also provided serious public support for the press declaration.

Before the press declaration, the sermon of the Friday prayer performed at Hagia Sophia was delivered by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Görmez. In his deeply moving, effective sermon that came from the heart, he addressed first the Zionists, then the Islamic world, then the whole world, and finally the people of Gaza. He said that the Zionists' end is near, and that they have shown the whole world by their own deeds that they are a people deserving destruction because of the unparalleled crimes against humanity they commit today. He spoke of the abasement and scandal in the stance of the Islamic world, especially of the countries neighboring Gaza, which, far from helping the people of Gaza, obstruct aid. Addressing the people of Gaza, he expressed only that we are ashamed, and the shame that there is nothing we can do other than what the Prophet said to Ammar ibn Yasir. At the same time he underlined that the people of Gaza have taught us and humanity a great deal by showing the highest degree of honor, dignity and faith.

Because none of what has been done for Gaza has, in the end, yet stopped the Zionist genocide, everything done and said begins after a certain point to express helplessness. That is why even the scholars' meeting, in the final analysis, gives rise to a murmur over what concrete thing it contains that will actually stop Israel. For everyone knows that Israel now understands no language but force. The only way to stop it is to use force against it. This being so, something beyond their station is expected of the Islamic scholars in approaching such an event. Probably, if there were an opportunity, everyone is motivated enough that all of them could rush to war, but from where, and how?

One of the most striking emphases in the declaration was the message of "an urgent and resolute call for the breaking of the land, air and sea blockade imposed on Gaza." The addressee of this message is in fact clear. Not Israel, but, on the contrary, the only country neighboring Gaza, especially Egypt. Egypt's closure today of the Rafah border crossing, giving priority to ensuring Israel's aggression (not its security, of course), has no excuse. Its only excuse is cooperation with Israel. Egypt is not only preventing the entry of international aid; it is also blocking its own people's steps of solidarity for Gaza with a tight security regime. Yet Egypt, even as a state, does not need to do anything. Merely releasing its own people would be enough and more than enough. By blocking millions of Egyptian citizens ready to reach the Rafah border, the greatest support is being given to Israel.

The support the Sisi administration is giving to Zionist Israel in this matter with great loyalty and ardor is one of the most important reasons for the Muslim world's appearance of helplessness. This officious defense that Egypt displays by blocking its own citizens or the peoples from every part of the world who want to reach the Rafah border is among the factors that most embolden Israel in its inhuman aggression.

In fact it is not only Egypt; the peoples of Jordan and Saudi Arabia too are not free with regard to solidarity with Gaza. For this reason the final declaration included the statement: "Scholars should lead broad-based demonstrations and protest marches; and states should respect the civil rights of their peoples, and the restrictions on freedom of expression and the right to peaceful demonstration in particular should be lifted. This matter is also a requirement of the obligations of states under the international human rights conventions to which they are party."

Of course, the most painful side of the matter is that the countries in question are today holding Islamic scholars themselves, that is, the scholars in the most serious solidarity with Gaza, in prison in their own countries without guilt. By what diplomatic actions is it possible to move these countries in order to secure some good for Gaza? Allahu a'lam.

You can read the other details of the scholars' declaration on today's pages of our newspaper, so I pass over them, but I cannot pass over its other important first article. It addresses those who try to disarm the resistance in Gaza, or the parties who, in the negotiations held so-called on Gaza's behalf, weaken before the immoral proposals coming in that direction: "As the scholars participating in the conference, we categorically oppose the disarmament of the resistance. We reject in firm terms all calls to dissuade the Palestinian people from resistance, which is their legitimate right; we strongly affirm that the Palestinian people have all legitimate means of resistance against the Zionist occupation, including armed resistance. We also consider it necessary that the ummah be mobilized in all forms of jihad in the way of Allah."

Everyone must now accept the place in which President Erdoğan positioned Hamas, its quality as Kuva-yi Milliye (National Forces) trying to liberate their homeland from the occupiers. No one can describe as terrorists the freedom fighters who exercise the right of resistance against the Zionist power whose genocidal crimes against humanity have been acknowledged by everyone, nor can anyone speak of taking the weapons in their hands. If anything is to be spoken of, it must now be the disarmament of Israel. Because the danger to humanity is not Hamas but Israel. It is now very clear that Israel is the power that uses the weapon it carries in its hands not for the security of people but for crime and threat.