Bahrain's most prominent Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim has severely denounced US President Donald Trump's so-called deal of the century on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict as treason and an act of aggression against the entire Muslim world. RNA - Bahrain's most prominent Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim has severely denounced US President Donald Trump's so-called deal of the century on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict as treason and an act of aggression against the entire Muslim world.
“The plan is an aggressive position against the whole Muslim Ummah, which the United States, Israel and those who have contributed to it are seeking to advance. This is an act of high treason,” the cleric said at a ceremony marking the ninth anniversary of Bahrain’s popular uprising against the ruling Al Khalifah regime in the Iranian city of Qom on Thursday night.
Sheikh Qassim also harshly criticized Arab states that have backed the US-crafted deal for betraying Palestinian people.
On January 28, Trump unveiled his so-called deal of the century, negotiated with Israel but without the Palestinians.
Palestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late 2017 after Trump controversially recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime, immediately rejected the plan, with President Mahmoud Abbas saying it “belongs to the dustbin of history.”
Palestinian leaders say the deal is a colonial plan to unilaterally control historic Palestine in its entirety and remove Palestinians from their homeland, adding that it heavily favors Israel and would deny them a viable independent state.
The top Bahraini Shia cleric then lauded Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a revolution of principles and a victory for all human beings.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is a major challenge to all arrogant powers,” he pointed out.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Sheikh Qassim described the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and their companions in Iraq on January 3 as an act of cowardice.
“Lt. Gen. Soleimani was fighting on the path of righteousness. Takfiri militant groups are working with arrogant powers in order to tarnish the image of Islam,” he highlighted.
In retaliation for the US airstrike that assassinated Lt. Gen. Soleimani, Abu Muhandis and their commanders and had been authorized by Trump, the IRGC on January 8 fired a number of ballistic missiles at Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq’s western province of Andar, which houses American troops.
Trump initially reported that "no Americans were harmed" but subsequent reports revealed that troops were injured in the attack, largely with concussions from the missile blasts.
On January 5, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill demanding the withdrawal of US forces.
Later on January 9, former Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the move.