debkafile reports: Russian Muslim leaders call for boycott of Israel after Hamas Moscow visit

The Hamas delegation’s Moscow visit this month – at the invitation of president Vladimir Putin – continues to produce fallout. debkafile‘s Moscow sources report that the Israeli ambassador in the Russian capital, Arkadi Milman, called last week on the Grand Mufti of Moscow, Rafael Ain Adin. The visit was initiated by Putin’s office in a belated attempt to counter-balance the damage caused by the warm welcome Russian officials awarded the Palestinian Islamist terrorist leaders.
It was the first time an Israeli official had ever called on the religious head of Russia’s 70 million Muslims. Yet no Russian or Israeli media outlet gave the event any space.
Nonetheless, word leaked out to the Muslim clergy across Russia and raised a storm of angry protest. Several mullahs called the Grand Mufti to denounce his reception of an official Jewish representative of the state of Israel. Over the weekend, the protest movement swelled with demands for an all-Muslim anti-Israel boycott to be spearheaded by the Kremlin.
Khadar Jamal, head of the Muslim supreme council of the Russian federation, released a statement saying: The Muslims of Russia do not recognize the Zionist entity and boycott it. The Mufti of Dagestan, Muhammad Abkarov, who is renowned in Russia as a religious authority, publicly sneered at the Grand Mufti: “Now that you have welcomed the Israeli ambassador, how about inviting the Israeli prime minister?”
debkafile‘s sources in Moscow comment that before the Hamas delegation’s official welcome in Moscow, local Muslims never ventured to raise their voices against Israel and its envoys. But the Kremlin’s action and its declared intention of working closely with the Hamas government have emboldened Russian Muslim leaders to echo the most strident anti-Israeli voices.