The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has come under heavy criticism for failing to come up with a strong response against the Israeli violence targetting Palestinians.
While Reacting to OIC’s silence to Israeli attacks on Palestinians, Sami al Arian, the Director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, said the OIC was formed in 1969 in response to an Israeli arson attack on the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
“It was founded based on the fact that Jerusalem is a holy city for the entire Muslim world, and it has to be protected and it has to come back to the fold of Islam,” al Arian said.
He added, “Yet we see today that there is an attempt by the Israeli government and by the settlers to take over the Al Aqsa mosque. We have witnessed this throughout the entire month of Ramadan. And OIC has not responded at all.
“If you look at the actions of the OIC and the countries it is very feeble, it is very weak.”
Fed up and frustrated with the OIC’s changing priorities that are alien to the body’s principles, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi last year warned the OIC that it could part ways with the organisation if it continued to remain silent on issues surrounding Palestine and Kashmir.
According to al Arian, the professor at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Turkey, as a member of the OIC, has been urging the international community to do “something collectively” to stop Israel from committing massacres of Palestinians.
But since the OIC’s leadership is based in Saudi Arabia, the body does not echo Turkey’s sentiments.
“It refuses to actually do or take any strong position towards this. Or at least bring the pressure of the international community on the state of Israel,” al Arian said in an interview with TRT World.
The OIC has also faced flak from advocacy groups and activists for not doing enough to strengthen the causes of Kashmir, Rohingyas and Uighur Muslims.
Some regional experts have already voiced concerns about the diminishing role of the OIC in taking up the causes like that of Palestine.
In an opinion published in TRT World, Thomas Parker, an expert in Islamic Political Thought, last year argued: “the Muslim world’s desire for autonomy and real change is not going away anytime soon. Saudi Arabia and the OIC would do well to recognise it or risk being replaced by new actors.”
