People like Saeb Erekat and Hanan Ashrawi love to tell their Western audiences that it is Jews, not Muslims, who are trying to turn this into a religious conflict.
Um, no.
On Sunday, the Association of Palestinian Scholars issued a fatwa - a Muslim religious legal ruling - entitled "The ruling of Islam concerning normalization with the Zionist enemy occupying the land of Palestine."
Not surprisingly, they come out against it.
The fatwa said that "normalization is one of the most dangerous initiatives, and a threat to the security of the nation and a corruption of its faith."
"Peace and normalization means the empowerment of Jews in the land of the Muslims, and over the necks of the Muslim people, [which is forbidden on] this or any Islamic land," the document continued.
"Reconciliation and normalization with the Zionist enemy means surrender to the infidels and their affairs, and the loss of religion and Islamic lands. "
It is notable that the scholars are referring to Jews here as "infidels" and not "dhimmis." The usual apologia that Muslims respect Jews as people of the book is absent in this document.
The fatwa notes that a long term truce is possible with infidels if it serves the larger Muslim interest, but treating them a regular people is always forbidden.
The fatwa "considers reconciliation and normalization with the Zionist enemy null and void and a crime...an explicit violation of the provisions of sharia. "
The document bitterly notes that "the current normalization represents injustice and aggression against the Palestinian people because it denies the right of the Palestinian people in its land and falsely recognizes the right of the Jews there."
The fatwa concluded with the duty to expel the Jews out of the land of Muslims.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)