SHEIKH AL-AHMAR CONDEMNS RECENT  ISRAELI VISITS TO YEMEN “THE GOVERNMENT HAS COMMITTED A DEADLY MISTAKE” [Archives:2000/15/Front Page]

Yemen’s Parliament Speaker Sheikh Abdulla bin Hussein Al-Ahmar, who is the leader of Yemen Coalition Party for Reform (Islah), last Friday said that by permitting Israelis to visit Yemen, the government has committed a deadly mistake and a huge error. Speaker Al-Ahmar statements were made following a visit to Yemen of 13 Israelis, some of which are of Yemeni origin, from Tel Aviv via Addis Ababa on Thursday. The first group’s members were carrying travel documents instead of Israeli passports. 
In an interview with al-Khaleej daily of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Al-Ahmar said the Yemeni Jews left Yemen 50 years ago, and should not be considered Yemenis, as they fled Yemen with their own will to an occupying enemy. He added that Jews, including Yemeni Jews, harbor hatred and terrorism against Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs as a whole. Al-Ahmar also said that Yemeni Jews should not come to Yemen because they were no longer Yemenis but Israelis and therefore must not be allowed to come back. He indicated that Israel was a state that he could not deny but ‘”as long as it has an aggressive, colonialist and terrorist stand against Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese and the Iranian people there should be no talks about normalization.” 
The first Jewish group that visited Yemen managed to have a meeting with Prime Minister Abdul Karim Al-Iryani and that was welcomed by the US president Bill Clinton who praised Yemen for its relaxation on travel restrictions against them. Despite the opposition he has shown towards the visit of the Yemeni Jews, Sheikh al-Ahmar said that he had met an American rabbi. He said the rabbi Samah al-Qadi, a Jew of Yemeni origin who left Yemen in 1931, met him with others as American and not as a Yemeni Jew and was carrying an American passport. On the hand, the Yemeni Opposition Coordination Council, which includes five parties, protested the visit of the Israelis to Yemen and called upon the parliament to immediately conduct a vote of no confidence on the government.
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