Speaking with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad-affiliated Al-Quds Al-Yaum on Aug. 19, Palestinian Islamic scholar Omar Fora warned that Israel "does not endanger the Palestinian people alone."
Israel, he said, refused to open its embassy east of the Nile River because it considers all the land from the eastern bank of the Nile to the Euphrates River to be part of the biblical land of Israel.
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"Therefore," said Fora, "it established its embassy west of the Nile, because it considers the land west of the Nile to be outside its territory." Fora continued by saying that "The Jewish state aspires to establish a "Greater Israel" stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and will eventually demand lands in Medina and other regions of the Arabian peninsula."
"Israel is not about to achieve these Zionist or biblical ambitions now," said Fora, "but Israel wants to establish 'Greater Israel.'"
"By Allah," he went on to say, "the day will come when Israel demands lands in Medina, the lands of [the Jewish tribes of] Qurayza, Nadhir, and Banu Qaynuda, as well as the lands of Khaybar."
This, he said, was the true goal of the Zionist movement.
Fora emphasized that he had no issue with Judaism, only with Zionism, but said that not all Jews would have the right to live in a Palestinian state.
"The only Jews that have a right to live with us in Palestine, under our patronage and our authority, are those who have been living in Palestine," he said. "But the Ashkenazi Jews, who came from overseas, from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and settled in this land – they should go back to where they came from."
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Fora clarified that this would not apply to Sephardi Jews, who he said "would have the same rights and obligations that we have."
"They would live with us, just like they live in Morocco, under the authority of the Kingdom of Morocco, they would live with us in Palestine."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.