WEST BANK (MEMO) – NGOs and Civil Society Networks from Europe, Asia, North America and Africa have signed an open letter to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation criticizing its silence over the recent attacks on Palestinians and their increasing silence over the issue of Palestine.
The letter, organized by the Decolonial International Network and the Universal Justice Network, is co-signed by dozens of organizations and networks from as far afield as Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Iran, UK, Lebanon and Pakistan.
In drawing attention to the founding of the OIC in the 1970s, the letter said:
“On 21 August 1969 Zionists started a fire in the Al-Aqsa mosque in Al-Quds. Amin al-Husseini, the former Mufti of Al-Quds, called for all Muslim heads of state to convene a summit to defend Palestine. On 25 September 1969, a summit of head of states of 24 Muslim majority countries was held in Rabat, Morocco. A resolution was passed that called for close cooperation and mutual assistance between Muslim countries. Six months later in March 1970, the First Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two years later, in 1972, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was founded. It was inspired by the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist occupation.
“Today the website of the OIC condemns the attack against the Azerbaijani Embassy in London and the bomb attack in west Kabul, Afghanistan. But you are completely silent about the Israeli attack on Gaza that started on Friday August 5. Some countries of the OIC now have entered into agreements of cooperation with Israel, thus betraying their founding creed of solidarity with the Palestinians suffering from injustice.
“We call upon the OIC to honor their history of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle by issuing a resolute condemnation of the Israeli aggression of the past few days and by sanctioning those of its members who have proceeded on a path of ‘normalization’ with the apartheid regime. There can be no normalization of war crimes, genocidal acts and policies and ongoing ethnic cleansing.”