DUBAI, June 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Sheikh of Al-Azhar Dr. Mohammad Sayed Tantawi received a memorandum of protest from the head of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg for comments that he made while speaking to UAE daily newspaper, Al-Bayan.

On May 12th, the newspaper published an interview with Tantawi in which he said that it would have been better for the September 11 bombers to bomb the Israeli Knesset.

“The person who can destroy the Israeli Knesset today is as real man,”
Tantawi said.

The memo, was given to Tantawi by the head of the Egyptian Parliament, Dr. Fathi Suroor, who received it from Burg, reported Al-Bayan.

The paper said that the memorandum will receive a response through diplomatic channels.

In the May 12th article, Tantawi told the paper that those who blow themselves up facing the enemy and for the protection of the sacred places of Islam and for the protection of their money and children are martyrs.

Tantawi was speaking at the opening session of a conference under the title of “Media and the Arab/Muslim Image” which was held in Cairo University.

He said that the September 11 attacks were criminal and that they didn’t solve the Palestinian cause, adding that it would serve the cause to direct such attacks to the Knesset instead.

He was criticized by Awatef Abdul Rahman the Dean of the Faculty of Mass Communication at Cairo University for meeting with Israeli Rabbi Israel Shahak.

Tantawi responded by saying: “The Zionists are meeting Palestinians and others every day. Does that give them any legitimacy? My meeting with the Rabbi was a political order and Islam is a religion of dialogue with the Jews and others. This does not mean that some Muslims, Christians and Jews do things that are not justified by the heavenly religions.”

In another development, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Sunday, June 23 that Israel’s air force is ready for the scenario of a September 11 style kamikaze plane attack on one of Israel’s cities, public radio reported.

In the event of such a threat, the air force would swiftly dispatch warplanes to chase down any suspicious aircraft and those flying without any clearance, said General Dan Haloutz, cited by public radio.

He also said the rules on when warplanes were authorized to open fire on civilian aircraft had been changed to take account of the possibility of an attack.

In one incident in February, Israeli warplanes buzzed a Lufthansa jetliner in Israeli airspace after the German plane lost contact with the Tel Aviv airport’s control tower.