"Any Palestinian participating in this is, from a religious view, committing a sin and his money is immoral," Sabri

OCCUPIRD JERUSALEM, November 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The top Palestinian Muslim official said Wednesday, November 26, that he had issued a religious decree which would bar Muslims from working in any capacity on the construction of Israel's West Bank controversial wall.

The Grand Mufti of Occupied Jerusalem, Ikeremah Sabri, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the barrier was being built on stolen land and therefore any financial gain from its construction would be immoral.

"The wall is built on stolen land and whatever is built on stolen land is illegal and the participation of anyone in building this wall -- whether they are contractors or owners of heavy machinery -- should be forbidden," he said.

"Any Palestinian participating in this is, from a religious view, committing a sin and his money is immoral."

The issuing of the decree, or fatwa, comes after two Israeli watchmen appointed to guard the separation barrier around occupied east Jerusalem were shot dead on Saturday, November 22. One was an Arab Israeli.

While Israel claims the barrier is merely designed for security purposes, Palestinians say that the fact that it cuts deep into their territory is proof that it is an attempt to pre-empt their future borders.

The mufti also criticized the so-called Geneva Initiative, an alternative peace plan drawn up by Palestinians and left-wing Israelis which is to be unveiled in Switzerland on Monday, December 1.

The agreement comes to a compromise on the right of return for Palestinians who were either expelled or fled their homes after the creation of Israel in 1948.

"We insist on the right of refugees to return to their homeland -- the land of their fathers and grandfathers," the mufti said.

A U.N. report underlined last September that the separation wall marked illegal annexation of Palestinian territory and must be condemned by the world community.

Under the terms of the internationally-backed 'roadmap' for Middle East, Israel is obliged to dismantle all outposts and place a complete freeze on settlement activity.

Another Peace Plan

Meanwhile, Israel's main opposition Labor party announced on Tuesday the main principles of its own peace plan for the region.

The plan, approved by Labor’s political committee, foresees the creation of a Palestinian state and a return by Israel to its 1967 borders, with the exception of "rectifications" made for security reasons or to include Jewish settlements.

The outline of Labour's plan coincided with the release by right-wing Israeli settlers of another blueprint for the Middle East, which rules out the creation of a Palestinian state or the dismantling of any of their settlements.

Labor’s plan says Occupied Jerusalem would be the capital of both the Israeli and Palestinian states.

But it says Israel would keep sovereignty over eastern parts of the city occupied in 1967 and it rules out a right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who number some four million today.

It says if peace talks fail, there should be a "unilateral separation" from the Palestinians and Israel should continue building its highly controversial security barrier through the West Bank, albeit ensuring its route encroached less than it currently does on Palestinian land.

By contrast the plan by right-wing Jewish settlers seeks to expand the state of Israel to encompass the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Israeli public radio said.

The West Bank and Gaza Strip would be just two out of 10 "cantons", ensuring a Jewish majority in parliament, said officials at Yesha council, the settlers' representative body.

With figures indicating that the Palestinian population could outstrip the Jewish population in little more than a decade, the canton arrangement would guarantee a Jewish majority in parliament.

The plan -- drawn up by settlers' leaders and right-wing members of parliament, including some from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's own Likud party -- is one of the most serious warnings from the right since Sharon established his government coalition in March 2001.

"The prime minister must understand in time that if he expels Jews from their houses, he will no longer have a majority in his government or in parliament," Ben Tzvi Lieberman, a senior member of Yesha, told Israeli radio.

Lieberman said the right-wingers' plan was needed because both the roadmap and the Geneva Initiative were "very bad solutions".

The roadmap envisages the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. The Geneva Initiative, a project forged by left-wing Israeli politicians and leading Palestinians, also foresees the creation of a Palestinian state, with Israel handing over some of its own land in exchange for existing settlements being incorporated into Israeli borders.

But the settlers' plan advocates "the eradication of terrorism, the abandonment of the principle of peace in exchange for land, autonomous administration for the Arabs and a final regional accord which would exclude the creation of a Palestinian state or the dismantling of settlements," Lieberman said.

Sharon, who has said he is considering "unilateral" measures towards the Palestinians, was reported on Tuesday to have received a tough time at the hands of his own MPs when he tried to convince them that there was no alternative to the land for peace principle.

While Sharon has remained tight-lipped about what his "unilateral" measures would involve, there have been widespread reports that it would see the evacuation of settlements on the far side of Israel's West Bank separation barrier or which were deemed difficult to defend.

Sharon's policies in the occupied territories recently came under fire from US President George W. Bush and his own top brass.

Bush said in a speech last week that the "daily humiliations" of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had to end and called for a halt to all settlement activity in line with the terms of the roadmap.