Some 2,700 Israeli Arabs will make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca this week, after a controversy was resolved regarding their travel documents.
The ability of Israeli Arabs to make the pilgrimage, known as the hajj, had been in doubt after Saudi Arabia demanded earlier this month that Israeli Arabs travel under Palestinian travel documents.
Israel objected to the Saudi demand, saying that Israeli Arabs as well as Arabs from the West Bank should travel under Jordanian documents, as in previous years.
The head of the local Arab councils in Israel, Sheik Ibrahim Nimer Hussein, said the Saudis agreed to the Israeli request after Saudi officials discussed the matter with the Palestinian leadership in the Gaza Strip.
All Muslims are obligated to make the hajj to the holy city at least once in their lifetimes. This year’s hajj ceremonies will culminate during the second week in May.
One source in Israel’s Religious Affairs Ministry said the Palestinian Authority was behind the Saudi request, describing it as another attempt by the self-rule government to extend its authority.
“We are always living with the Palestinian tricks,” the source told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz. “They are always trying to `annex’ Israel.”
Earlier this week, Israel prevented nearly 100 Palestinian from Gaza from departing for Egypt to make the hajj because they had links to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad fundamentalist movements, which are militantly opposed to the peace process.
Earlier this month, Israel seized about 4,000 Palestinian passports issued by the Palestinian Authority to West Bank Palestinians. Israel said at the time that Palestinian passports could only be issued to residents of the Palestinian self-rule zones.
This week, a spokesman for the Religious Affairs Ministry said that at the last minute, Saudi Arabia also cut the combined quota of pilgrims traveling to Saudi Arabia from Israel, the West Bank and the Palestinian self-rule zones from 15,000 to 10,000 people.
He said the cut was an attempt to put Israel “in the situation where it has to prevent people who planned to go on hajj from going.”
Meanwhile, the first group of Palestinian left Gaza last week for Mecca, traveling on Palestinian travel documents.
Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, who was on hand to see off the group of about 700 pilgrims, said he was pleased to see Palestinians making the hajj for the first time on Palestinian passports.
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