Published Sunday 19/07/2009 (updated) 20/07/2009 19:19

 The Islamic-Christian Front in Jerusalem will compose a dictionary including all the names of archeological sites and streets of the holy city in Arabic, officials said Sunday.

The campaign was announced as a response to Israel's decision to Hebraize Arabic and English road signs and sites throughout Israel.

The dictionary project was announced by Islamic-Christian Front Secretary-General Dr. Hassan Khatir during a news conference at Ramatan news agency in the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

Palestine's chief Islamic judge, Shaikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi, participated in the conference along with Father Manuel Mussallam, and both commemorated the holiday that marks Prophet Muhammad’s journey to heaven.

Other speakers addressed the latest developments in Jerusalem, especially Israeli policies they said aimed at desecrating the city, among them the inauguration of a dance club near the Al-Aqsa Mosque and ads for bars featuring the Dome of the Rock. Alcohol is generally forbidden in Islam.

The city's annual gay pride events, which tend to draw the ire of conservative Muslim, Christian and Jewish officials each year, were also noted among the complaints.

The Muslim and Christian speakers called on other Arab countries to name major streets and squares in their capitals after Jerusalem's roads and archeological sites.

Last week, the Israeli occupation government so-called transportation minister announced a plan to change English and Arabic street signs to reflect just their Hebrew names.

"This government, and certainly this minister, will not allow anyone to turn Jewish Jerusalem to Palestinian Al-Quds," said Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.

The daily Hebrew-language paper, Israel's largest, reported last Monday that the plan had been in the works for the past year.

Intentions to compile dictionary involving all names of Arab places in Jerusalem

[ 20/07/2009 - 11:13 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)--

Dr. Hassan Khater, the secretary-general of the Islamic-Christian front for the defense of Jerusalem, said that the front would publish a dictionary involving all the names of archaeological sites and streets in the occupied city of Jerusalem and the 1948 occupied lands in retaliation to the Israeli measure of judaizing the Arab names.

Dr. Khater told a news conference that Israel changed the names of more than 20,000 archaeological sites in Jerusalem into Jewish names.

He noted that the international law is in favor of Jerusalem and demonstrates the legitimacy of the Arab presence and identity of the holy city, it further condemns the Israeli occupation of the city, calling for using the international resolutions issued by the UN to confront the Israeli violations in Jerusalem.

The front's head noted that Jerusalem is still governed by the fourth Geneva convention issued in 1948.

In another news conference held Sunday, Palestinian minister of culture Osama Al-Issawi said that the Israeli occupation government tries through changing the names of Arab cities into Jewish ones to judaize Jerusalem.

He stressed that such practices would not succeed in changing the Arab identity of the Palestinian land.

Yisrael Katz, the right-wing Israeli minister of transport, had prepared a comprehensive plan to obliterate the features of the Arab cities in Jerusalem and the 1984 occupied lands.