As Muslim communities around the world celebrate Eid and the end of Ramadan, Palestinian Muslims in occupied East Jerusalem are reeling from yet another holy month when Israel decided to unleash brutal violence against them. Once again, Israeli security forces raided Al-Aqsa Mosque – Islam’s third-holiest site – to assault praying Palestinians.
Israel has no jurisdiction over al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), where Al-Aqsa is located. According to the internationally recognized status quo, Jordan and the Jordan-appointed Jerusalem Waqf Council have the right to decide what happens on their premises.
Nevertheless, Israeli authorities imposed a ban on nighttime worship in the Al-Aqsa compound, preventing Palestinians from freely practicing their faith, which was met with Palestinian resistance. Israeli authorities also once again banned many Palestinians from visiting the holy site, violating not only their right to worship freely, but also their right to move freely within their own country.
Meanwhile, the international media has moved on to the story of Israeli violence in occupied East Jerusalem, but the Muslim community should not. It is time we thought about how to deal with Israeli violations of the holy site of Islam and Israeli violence against our Palestinian brothers and sisters.
An important question is how Muslims should approach the pilgrimage to Al-Aqsa and travel to occupied Palestine.
Understand the occupation
In considering this issue, it is crucial to have some understanding of the Israeli occupation and the apartheid system under which the Palestinians live.
For decades, the Palestinian people have faced a series of brutal Israeli policies, including land confiscation, segregation, economic expropriation and illegal settlement building. Israel regularly violates the human rights of Palestinians and does not even spare Palestinian children, who are intimidated, beaten, arrested and even killed by Israeli forces.
Israeli soldiers regularly carry out raids against Palestinian communities, killing Palestinians with impunity. Israel has also imposed an illegal blockade on Gaza, turning the area into an open-air prison, which it regularly bombs in its mass killing campaigns.
Even Palestinians with Israeli citizenship face the consequences of Israeli apartheid and face discrimination in all aspects of life, including education, health care and other essential services.
Palestinians are also denied freedom of movement in their own homeland. A series of checkpoints, roadblocks, segregated roads, an apartheid wall and an arbitrary permit system prevent them from traveling freely between Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
This means that Palestinians – Muslims and Christians alike – are often denied access to their holy sites, while foreign tourists are free to visit and roam as they please.
Palestinians are also regularly prevented from traveling abroad. In 2021, Israel imposed travel bans on more than 10,000 Palestinians.
Even Palestinian people from the diaspora are often not allowed into occupied Palestine and Jerusalem. The Israeli Border Police collects information about who is of Palestinian descent, who has refugee status and what their purpose is for their visit. And in many cases, foreigners of Palestinian descent who want to visit, live or work in Palestine are arbitrarily refused entry at Israeli-controlled gates.
Even if you have a privileged passport that does not require a visa to enter Israel, you may still be refused entry. For example, although I am a US citizen and my wife and son are German citizens, the fact that they have Palestinian IDs from Gaza prevents us from entering Jerusalem together as a family.
Those who are residents of occupied East Jerusalem have nominal access to Al-Aqsa, but even they face restrictions. For example, Muslim pilgrims are allowed to enter the compound through the Mughrabi gate, but Palestinians are not. Israeli authorities also regularly and arbitrarily close Al-Aqsa for security reasons.
Israel’s claim that it recognizes and adheres to the status quo in the holy places is patently false. The Israeli authorities daily violate the rights of Jordan and the Waqf by imposing their own security measures and deciding who can enter Al-Aqsa and who cannot.
These violations have long fueled debates, especially in the Arab world, about avoiding travel to Jerusalem. In 2012, the late Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi issued a fatwa arguing that it is forbidden to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem because it is a form of normalization of the Israeli state.
Israeli gains and the extermination of Palestinians
Aside from Israel’s attacks on Al-Aqsa and Muslim worshippers, another issue to consider is how traveling to the holy sites benefits Israel financially and inadvertently aids its propaganda.
Tourism is an important part of Israel’s economy, accounting for 2.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and 6 percent of employment.
In 2019, Israel estimated that more than 127,000 tourists from Muslim-majority countries arrived. Add Muslims from various diasporas to that, and you get a significant portion of the 4.5 million tourists who visit Israel/Palestine annually.
With the signing in 2020 of a number of normalization agreements with Arab states, known as the Abraham Accords, Israel has sought to tap new pools of potential Muslim tourists to boost its tourism sector.
In 2021, former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman said he will work to bring Muslims to Jerusalem so they can “see for themselves how Israel protects holy sites.” Meanwhile, the tourism ministry has prioritized marketing Israel as a tourist destination for Muslim travelers, managing its own tour services and coordinating with travel agencies.
The top result on Google when you enter “pilgrimage to Al-Aqsa” is the website of an Israel-based agency called Tourism of the World. The landing page for his Muslim pilgrimages to the “Holy Land” quotes the Quran and lists several religiously important places such as Al-Aqsa, Omar Mosque and Nabi Musa Mosque in Jericho. Of course it makes no mention of Palestine or the Palestinians.
The problem is that not only Israeli-run travel agencies are erasing the Palestinian people and their suffering. A quick look at Muslim travel tour operators shows that many of them also use the same removal.
For example, a German agency offers a trip to Jerusalem that also includes visits to Bethlehem, Jericho and Hebron. Not once is “Palestine” or “Palestinians” mentioned in the tour’s ad on its website, even though they are Palestinian cities on the route.
A UK-based agency not only makes no mention of Palestine, but it also discourages tourists from interacting with the “local population”. Another even claims that the tour it offers “is strictly a historical and spiritual journey” and “does not associate with any political group”.
Some tour operators even claim that Al-Aqsa is safe for families with children, covering up the Israeli occupation’s deadly violence against Palestinians.
By emphasizing the spiritual significance of the land while turning a blind eye to the plight of the indigenous people, Israel normalizes its occupation and apartheid and intensifies its erasure campaign against the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians have made it clear how they feel about such complicity. In October 2020, local believers asked a business delegation from the United Arab Emirates visiting Al-Aqsa, accompanied by Israeli security forces, to leave the compound. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, also spoke out against Emirati Muslims visiting Al-Aqsa, citing a 2014 fatwa banning prayer at the holy site that constitutes Israel’s normalization.
Boycott Israel, embrace Palestine
Of course, Palestinians do not feel they have the exclusive right to decide who of the Muslim community can visit Al-Aqsa and who cannot. But they have asked for solidarity with their cause.
Since 2005, this call has emerged in the form of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls on “men of conscience” around the world to show solidarity with the Palestinian people by boycotting Israel.
Heeding the call and deciding not to travel to Jerusalem is an option. But there’s another: a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could instead offer tourists a chance to promote international solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Israel uses tourism to condone its crimes, and it is the duty of anyone visiting the country to oppose these tactics that help exploit and mistreat the indigenous people.
The BDS guidelines can help Muslims who want to visit Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa do so in a way that does not harm the Palestinians and their cause. They can heed the call by avoiding Israeli-run tourist sites in occupied Palestine, boycotting all Israeli products and businesses, and not attending Israeli cultural events.
It is crucial to choose a travel agency or group tour that does not violate the principles of BDS. While some travel agencies include interaction with local Palestinians as part of their tours, they do not adhere to BDS. There are even known cases of travel agencies actively violating it by advertising tourist attractions such as the Tower of David Museum that are illegally operated by the Israeli occupation authorities.
But BDS should be the bare minimum for any Muslim traveling to Jerusalem. In fact, what is probably more important than doing no harm is going to Palestine to learn about deep-rooted settler colonialism, interact with Palestinians, and aspire to become their global ambassadors after returning home.
Delegation tours, such as those run by groups like Eyewitness Palestine, allow travelers not only to undertake a pilgrimage to the holy sites, but also work to build transnational solidarity and become advocates for justice and liberation within their own communities.
Fulfilling a sunnah need not go against the Palestinian cause. Fighting injustice and standing up for the oppressed are core principles of Islam. In this sense, it is only natural to support the Palestinian struggle by reconsidering religious tourism to Jerusalem as a form of resistance to the occupation.
Muslims must understand that the political and the spiritual are closely intertwined. They should reject Israeli propaganda that distances Al-Aqsa from the Palestinian plight, help expose the Israeli settler project, and amplify the Palestinian voices that recount their oppression and liberation.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.