Essam Youssef, who is the head of a "human rights" NGO in Gaza, has declared that the kids playing soccer on the most sacred Jewish site is a "human right."
Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that soccer and other games on the Temple Mount are forbidden for desecrating the site's holiness, and the Jerusalem police are enforcing that ban, selectively, when pressured.
Youssef, who styles himself as a human rights activist, called the Supreme Court decision "ridiculous," adding how ironic it was that Israel allowed Jews to "break into the sanctities of others and desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque continuously" while pretending to care about the holiness of the site by banning soccer.Youssef heads a previously unheard-of NGO, the "Integrity Foundation for Humanitarian and Human Rights (Hayat Haq)". Before that he headed a similarly sketchy organization called the International Public Foundation to Aid Gaza which seems to have done nothing to actually help anyone in Gaza.
Essam Youssef is not the first Palestinian to try to grab headlines by characterizing himself as a human rights leader when in fact he is using a fake interest in human rights as a way to enrich himself. NGOs are a big business in the territories.
But his statement was published widely in Palestinian media, including Ma'an, Felesteen and others.