It’s time for Muslim people’s cooperation

The decision, “East Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Palestine,” will have a major political, mental and emotional impact on the Muslim world. We will see its effects not only in the Muslim world, but also in relations with the U.S. and Europe. However, this decision must not stop at this, because the real challenging process starts from now onward. In this difficult period, besides the state, Muslim nations also have a great responsibility.

It is wrong to burden the states, ruling governments and leaders alone with the responsibility and watch from the sidelines. The responsibility to Jerusalem is a duty on the shoulders of each and every Muslim.

Cooperation of Muslim nations

Up until today, the leaders and ruling governments of Muslim countries could not unite. In addition to being unable to unite, they turned the region into a bloodbath and dragged it into civil wars, wars and chaos.

Did it have to reach the point of the U.S. declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to reach a decision? Let us not forget that while these decisions had to be taken long years ago, they were delayed simply because of country regimes’ degenerated structures.

Only when U.S. President Donald Trump made this historic mistake, only when peoples took to the streets, demonstrations of protest were held everywhere and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan confronted Israel in the harshest manner, then Muslim countries were forced to take a joint decision. The OIC presented the image of unity and alliance for the first time. Even if it is late, this is a success.

Now, in the following struggle, Muslim nations should also cooperate, unite and force ruling governments to save Jerusalem from occupation. We must establish mechanisms, organizations and institutions to achieve this. We must prepare projects and strategies that have vision encompassing the entire Muslim world. Instead of expecting states, ruling governments to do this, we, as civilians must personally do this.

We must establish pressure and control mechanisms

The Palestine question has shown us once more that the degeneration of regimes in Muslim countries may reach the extent of destroying Muslims’ most sacred cities and even their most sacred causes. This degeneration may even lead to the death of thousands of Muslims. Therefore, we must establish nongovernmental organizations, think tanks of international power that will act independently and freely. These organizations need to be completely independent both economically and in mentality, rather than being under the control of regimes. This is because while states’ geopolitical decisions change, a Muslim individual’s universal principles never will. In order to defend these principles, we need institutes that are not under state control (I will add that there are pleasing steps being taken to achieve this. I will write about it once it becomes clear).

We must establish academies, institutes, think tanks

Despite having such a strong sense of Jerusalem’s problem, if you remember, I had written in my Dec. 7, 2017 article that Turkey does not have a single Jerusalem or Palestine research center. After that article, Ankara University of Social Sciences and Istanbul Medeniyet University announced that they will be establishing Jerusalem research centers. They deserve to be applauded. But this alone is not enough. We need very strong Israel research centers, academies that will carry out studies on Judaism and a Middle East research center. Universities need to wake up and take action.

We must establish an independent global center

We cannot get the world to hear our legitimate voice in Jerusalem through slogans alone. We need media outlets, tools that will make worldwide impact. The photograph of 14-year-old Juneid – the symbol of the third Intifada in recent incidents – among 20 Israeli soldiers was taken by photo journalist Wisam Hashlamoun from Anadolu Agency’s (AA) Jerusalem office. I felt proud. President Erdoğan also showed this photograph at the summit to the whole world. We need other official and private global media outlets like AA.

Do you know why the private sector is not leaning on this matter? It is because they are apparently waiting for an instruction from the president.

As a result, Muslims need to unite, build alliance and become one. Most importantly, establishing independent control mechanisms that will prevent the degeneration of ruling governments is critical.

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