FEATURE: Dome of the Rock on Vodka Bottle in Israel, By Mohammed Mar'i

Dome of the Rock on Vodka Bottle in Israeli
By Mohammed Mar'i
(Arab American Media Services. Permission granted to republish.)

(Ramallah, Occupied Palestine)-- While the Muslims in Palestine were pleased by the arrival of the renovated pulpit (minbar in Arabic) of Salah Ad-Deen of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, an Israeli import and export company distributed vodka bottles with pictures of the Dome of the Rock printed on.

Ahmed Al Abrah, citizen of Al Ramleh in Israel, told the Al Aqsa Establishment for Reconstructing the Islamic Holy Sites on Monday, January 22, 2007 that he has seen the photo of the Dome of the Rock on bottles of wine he bought from a cafeteria in Rahovot city in Israel a few days ago . "I went in a tour to check if this kind of vodka is being sold in other stores or cities in Israel and I found it in so many stores like in Ashdod", he said.

Al Abrah told them that he broke all the bottles with the photo except one as an evident. The Establishment said that the bottle contains a kind of vodka labeled "SOYUS-VICTAN EVREISKAYA". It is distributed by an Israeli company called "Bolonia for import and export company 2000 MD" in the Israeli city of Ashdod. The Establishment added that on the other side of the bottle it appears that it is originally manufactured in the Ukraine.

The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Sheikh Mohammed Hussein condemned the behavior of the Israeli company saying that "the marketing of wine bottles with a picture of the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, on them is an Israeli attempt to humiliate Muslims everywhere". He said that "putting a picture of a holy shrine on a bottle of wine which is forbidden in Islam is an insult on Islamic creed and Islamic civilization." "It is a belligerence on Muslims dignity and passion", he added.


(Mohammed Mar'i is a freelance Palestinian journalist based in Ramallah, Occupied Palestine. He can be reached at mmaree63@gmail.com.)