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AOCE Praises Appointments of Two Muslim Ministers in Australian Gov’t

Part of Al-Azhar’s celebration yesterday of its teachers’ graduation in partnership with the British Council (Al-Azhar Foundation)
Part of Al-Azhar’s celebration yesterday of its teachers’ graduation in partnership with the British Council (Al-Azhar Foundation)
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AOCE Praises Appointments of Two Muslim Ministers in Australian Gov’t

Part of Al-Azhar’s celebration yesterday of its teachers’ graduation in partnership with the British Council (Al-Azhar Foundation)
Part of Al-Azhar’s celebration yesterday of its teachers’ graduation in partnership with the British Council (Al-Azhar Foundation)

Al-Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism (AOCE) hailed the appointment of two Muslim ministers in the new Australian government.

AOCE touched upon the Australian government’s performance after the victory of the Australian Labor Party led by Anthony Albanese at the parliamentary elections.

It added that this cabinet line-up, comprising two Muslim ministers, is unprecedented.

Anne Aly took on the ministry roles of Minister for Early Childhood and Youth.
Anne Aly, Australia’s first female Muslim minister, was sworn in as minister for early childhood and youth, while Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic is the first Muslim to serve in Cabinet.

AOCE praised this step considering that assigning Muslims to pioneering posts is a response to the hate speech promoted by the far-right groups in Europe.

Meanwhile, Azhar celebrated 5,000 teachers at Azhar who passed a training program to teach English language (AATAGs) in cooperation with the British Council.

This program comes in partnership with the British Council in the sustainable professional development field.

Grand Imam's Deputy Dr. Muhammad Al-Duwaini stressed that Azhar attaches great importance to foreign languages and is keen on learning them.

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Arab World

Settler Attacks Push Palestinians to Abandon West Bank Village

Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
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Settler Attacks Push Palestinians to Abandon West Bank Village

Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
Men load a truck with their belongings in Maghayer al-Deir, east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank © JOHN WESSELS / AFP

Palestinian residents of Maghayer al-Deir in the occupied West Bank told AFP on Thursday that they had begun packing their belonging and preparing to leave the village following repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.

Yusef Malihat, a resident of the tiny village east of Ramallah, told AFP his community had decided to leave because its members felt powerless in the face of the settler violence.

"No one provides us with protection at all," he said, a keffiyeh scarf protecting his head from the sun as he loaded a pickup truck with chain-link fencing previously used to pen up sheep and goats.

"They demolished the houses and threatened us with expulsion and killing," he said, as a group of settlers looked on from a new outpost a few hundred meters away.

The West Bank is home to about three million Palestinians, but also some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.

Settlement outposts, built informally and sometimes overnight, are considered illegal under Israeli law too, although enforcement is relatively rare.

The Israeli military told AFP it was "looking into" the legality of the outpost at Maghayer al-Deir.

"It's very sad, what's happening now... even for an outpost," said Itamar Greenberg, an Israeli peace activist present at Maghayer al-Deir on Thursday.

"It's a new outpost 60 meters from the last house of the community, and on Sunday one settler told me that in one month, the Bedouins will not be here, but it (happened much) more quickly," he told AFP.

The Palestinian Authority's Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission denounced Maghayer al-Deir's displacement, describing it as being the result of the "terrorism of the settler militias".

It said in a statement that a similar fate had befallen 29 other Bedouin communities, whose small size and isolation in rural areas make them more vulnerable.

In the area east of Ramallah, where hills slope down towards the Jordan Valley, Maghayer al-Deir was one of the last remaining communities after the residents of several others were recently displaced.

Its 124 residents will now be dispersed to other nearby areas.

Malihat told AFP some would go to the Christian village of Taybeh just over 10 kilometers (six miles) away, and others to Ramallah.

Uncertain they would be able to return, the families loaded all they could fit in their trucks, including furniture, irrigation pipes and bales of hay.