Silence over sacrilege condemned by Fadlallah

Two recent incidents slandering the prophet Mohammed and the Virgin Mary came under heavy fire from Muslim clerics on July 11. Leading Shiite scholar Sayyed Mohamed Hussien Fadlallah denounced the world's silence over the campaign and the "submission" of Arabs to US policies.

"The insults dealt to Islamic religious figures have not been denounced by the international community or the Islamic world.

"Islamic and Arab governments are instead preparing for their participation in the Middle East economic conference in Qatar (in November) which will be attended by Israel," Fadlallah said in a sermon Friday at the Huseinein mosque in Haret Hreyk. "These governments are obviously bowing to US pressures to attend the conference which seeks to impose economic normalization between the Arabs and Israel to pave the way for later political concessions," he added. "The campaign by Jews, which also targets Christian religious figures, is not faced the way it should be by Arabs," he said.

Slogans and posters slandering the prophet Mohammed appeared last week on the walls of the West Bank city of Hebron.

A picture showing the Virgin Mary with the face of a cow was recently published in an Israeli magazine, and copies of the Koran were torn in a Hebron school stormed by Jews.

For his part, Sheikh Mohammed Mahdi Shamseldin, the head of the higher Shiite council, blasted the international community for its double standards when dealing with political issues.

"The world, which bitterly denounces anyone who infringes on Jewish religious sites and blasts him as anti-Semitic, did not react to the Zionist campaign against Muslims and Christians," he said in a sermon in the scientific and Cultural Assembly's mosque in Gihobeiri.

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