Conference reaffirms Hashemite Custodianship

AMMAN — Lower House Speaker Abdulminem Oddat on Thursday inaugurated the conference titled “The Hashemites and Jerusalem: A History of Care and Protection”.

The Palestine Parliamentary Committee, in cooperation with Taj Media, Production and Artistic Distribution, organised the conference, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During the opening of the conference, Oddat said that Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause continue to be critical components of the Jordanian and Hashemite legitimacy.

He reviewed parliamentary efforts in the Arab, Islamic and international arenas, which aimed to remind the international community and its UN organisations of their legal duties to grant the Palestinian people their legitimate rights and end this historical grievance.

This would include the establishment of an independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, Oddat stated.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Zahrawi, head of the Palestine Parliamentary Committee, said that over the past months the committee has worked to expose all the crimes of the Israeli occupation in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan and the rest of the Arab neighbourhouds of Jerusalem, in support of the Palestinian people.

He also highlighted the Hashemite Custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites as “the only guarantee” to preserve their Arab identity and protect them from Israeli attempts to alter the geographical and demographic reality of the holy city.

The conference sessions discussed the conflict over Jerusalem, international legitimacy, Jordan’s role and Jerusalem in the Jordanian official discourse and the political results of the recent Israeli aggression on Gaza and its repercussions on Jerusalem.

The sessions also viewed the roles of: The Arab Army in preserving the Arab identity of Jerusalem, media and social networking in supporting the Gaza Strip, Jordan's role to defend Jerusalem politically and religiously, in addition to the parliament's role to protect the Arab identity of Jerusalem.