Hawzah News Agency - Leading Shia cleric in Bahrain Ayatollah Sheikh Issa Al-Qassem issued a fatwa (religious legal opinion) in which he announced the normalization with the Israeli enemy as ‘Haram’.

In a video conference with 14 religious figures from the Islamic countries on Tuesday, Sheikh Qassem announced any attempt to normalize ties with the Zionist regime as a betrayal to the Islamic Ummah (nation) and disaffiliating the religion of God.

He stressed, meanwhile, that the silence of the Islamic Ummah towards the normalization of relations is another betrayal and crime against Muslims.

The senior cleric warned that the Zionist aggression against the Islamic Ummah is going on, noting that the Zionists have targeted the identity of the Muslims by trying to completely dominate and humiliate the Muslims.“Normalization of relations with the Zionist regime is an obvious way to eliminate the Palestinian issue,” Sheikh Qassem was quoted as saying.

“The normalization of relations is a cruel way to recognize the Zionist regime and legalize its survival and even to expand its domination over the Muslim and Arab world,” he said. “It is a way to condemn Islam and the Muslim world.”

He added that normalizing relations with the Zionist regime means condemning the resistance against the occupiers and accepting the destructive role that the Zionists have been playing to destabilize the region.

Earlier last month, the United Arab Emirates and the Zionist entity announced normalizing ties. The deal, brokered by the US, was described as ‘historic’ by President Donald Trump, who expected that other Arab states will echo such move.