Former Grand Mufti of Lebanon Mohammed Rashid Qabbani issued a fatwa according to which Palestinians and all Arabs and Muslims have a duty to wage Jihad "to liberate Palestine from the occupation of the Jews of the Balfour Declaration." Sheikh Qabbani compared the liberation of Palestine today to the Jihad waged by the Prophet Muhammad, by Omar ibn Al-Khattab, and by Saladin, and declared that Islam forbids the Palestinians and all Arab and Muslim countries "to surrender, to reconcile, to make peace treaties, or to concede a single inch of Arab Palestinian land to the foreign Jewish occupiers." Sheikh Qabbani's address aired on Al-Mayadeen TV on May 16.

Following is a transcript:

Mohammed Rashid Qabbani: I hereby issue this fatwa: The Arab and Islamic nation has a duty to wage Jihad for the sake of Allah, in order to liberate Palestine from the foreign Israeli occupation. This is in accordance with the Islamic legal decree that Palestine and Jerusalem constitute Arab land –throughout history, in the present, and in the future. The Al-Aqsa Mosque was the first qibla in Islam and the third holiest place, after Mecca and Medina.

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On the basis of all this, I reiterate this religious legal fatwa, according to which Palestine is the historical Islamic Arab land, and it belongs to the Arab Palestinian people and to the non-Muslim Arab Palestinians who live among them. It was occupied by the Zionist Jews of the Balfour Declaration, who immigrated to it from all countries of the world, with the help of the foreign countries, Western, Eastern, and others, on May 14, 1948. The liberation of Palestine from the occupation of the Jews of the Balfour Declaration is an Islamic duty incumbent upon the Palestinian people and upon all the Arab and Muslim countries and their peoples. The Palestinians and the countries of the Arabs and the Muslims are forbidden, by the religion of Islam, to surrender, to reconcile, to make peace treaties, or to concede a single inch of Arab Palestinian land to the foreign Jewish occupiers, for the so-called “State of Israel.” They are also forbidden to recognize the so-called “Israel,” because their recognition of it and their reconciliation with it void the right of future Palestinian generations, and of future generations of the Arab and Islamic peoples too, to liberate Palestine from the foreign Jewish occupation. Palestine is Arab, and it belongs to all generations of the Arab nation, and not just to one generation.

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All the so-called “Arab-Israeli peace agreements” which include recognition of the so-called “Israel” on the Arab land of Palestine are null and void. They are illegitimate agreements that are non-binding according to Islamic law.

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Let all the Arabs and Muslims and all their countries know that the liberation of Palestine from the Israeli occupation constitutes Jihad for the sake of Allah – exactly like the Jihad of the Prophet Muhammad, and that of the two liberators of Palestine and Jerusalem, Omar ibn Al-Khattab and Saladin.

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