Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal

Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal will chair the extraordinary meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah on Tuesday.

Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah and Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, have confirmed their attendance.

A number of foreign ministers from the 56 member countries of the organization are expected to attend the meeting at the OIC headquarters on Jeddah’s famous Madinah Road.

OIC Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani has appealed to the international community to intervene in Palestine and to stop the Israeli attacks on Gaza. He urged the OIC member states to provide urgent humanitarian relief to the besieged Gazans.

The meeting will discuss latest developments in Gaza and repercussions of the Israeli attacks as well as possible ways of countering them at regional and international forums.

The presence of the Palestinian prime minister at the Jeddah meeting is significant. Widely known as Abu Walid, Hamdallah heads the Fatah-Hamas unity government. Though he is a Fatah member, his premiership was endorsed by Hamas. He is generally seen as a political independent. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Manchester.

Aziz will be arriving in Jeddah on Monday afternoon, said Pakistani diplomats.

This is the second ministerial meeting to deal with Palestine in a month. The last one was on July 10. Following up that meeting’s recommendations, the OIC secretary-general contacted a number of political acquaintances within member states and urged them to shoulder their responsibilities in stopping Israeli military aggression.

The group of OIC member states at the United Nations, popularly known as the Islamic Group, has also been active in requesting the UN Security Council to hold emergency sessions. The Security Council, however, failed to take any concrete action in stopping the Israeli aggression. Instead, it did no more than issuing a statement calling for a cease-fire.

However, the Islamic Group managed to request an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which condemned the Israeli aggression and suggested the immediate formation of an International Independent Investigation Commission to investigate all violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and especially Gaza.

The OIC has also begun a push to prosecute Israeli officials before the International Criminal Court, and to continue with the State of Apartheid case against the current Israeli government.

Despite OIC’s efforts, there is popular anger in the Muslim world against the organization for having failed to diplomatically sway the member countries and the international community into taking a unified stand against the occupiers.

Leaders of all Muslim countries are facing immense pressure from their people to stop Israel from murdering children in Gaza. Across the world, anger against Israel is at new highs.

 
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