Yemeni clerics condemn visit of Israeli tourists

Several mosques preachers in Sanaa and other Yemeni provinces during their Friday's sermons on Friday launched a large scale campaign of criticism over the visit of the Israeli tourist delegation to Yemen last week and considered this visit as falling in the course of the set "Zionist scheme aiming at violating the Yemeni stances and in contradiction to Yemen's commitment to Arab and Islamic principles."

The criticism targeted the Yemeni government as the preachers asked for opening direct investigations with the official sides that permitted the visit of the Israeli delegation after it was found out that the visit aimed at testing reaction of the Yemeni public towards normalization with Israel which still occupies Arab territories.

On Wednesday, the speaker of the Yemeni parliament talked on the telephone with the Yemeni minister of the Interior Hussein Muhammad Arab and asked him on how the Jewish delegation entered Yemen and the sides which gave the facilities to get into the country without passports, only with special documents.

Meantime, members at the Yemeni parliament threatened to raise this issue inside the parliament and to question the officials in the sides which proved involvement in arranging the visit of the Israeli delegation in light of the Yemeni firm stand concerning normalization with Israel and the process which is stipulated by a united Arab stand towards this issue when a just and comprehensive peace is achieved in the region.