{"id":10453,"date":"2017-11-23T21:41:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T16:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=10453"},"modified":"2017-11-23T21:41:35","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T16:11:35","slug":"israeli-mans-selfies-masjid-e-nabwi-spark-outrage-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=10453","title":{"rendered":"Israeli man’s selfies at Masjid-e-Nabwi spark outrage on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medina:<\/strong> Social media erupted in anger at images of an Israeli citizen who took photos of himself in\u00a0the Prophet Muhammad\u2019s (pbuh) Mosque in Madina (Masjid-e-Nabwi).<\/em><\/p>\n

BBC\u00a0reports that Russian born Ben Tzion has a history of posting images at religious locations across the Middle East, from Iran to Jordan. The image of him inside Masjid-e-Nabwi was posted on his Facebook page.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a\u00a0Facebook post, he wrote: \u201cPeople of Saudi Arabia would stand with the Jewish nation side by side\u201d. \u201cPeace in the Middle East with respect and love towards each other\u201d, another of his\u00a0posts\u00a0stated.<\/em><\/p>\n

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, he referred to his penchant for visiting Muslim countries as \u201ca hobby\u201d and reiterated his\u00a0\u201crespect for other cultures and faiths\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

While non-Muslims are banned from entering the city of Makkah, religious sites in Madina are open to the public, Tzion has stressed. Tzion, who is a citizen of both Russia and Israel, did not disclose which passport he travelled with but stressed that he has always travelled legally and with the appropriate paperwork.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo-one in the Arab world ever approached me with hostility,\u201d he said. \u201cThey tell me they love Israel and the Jewish people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

However, the backlash against the images of Tzion at Masjid-e-Nabwi has prompted an Arabic hashtag,\u00a0\u201cA Zionist at the Prophet\u2019s Mosque\u201d to go viral in the last space of 24 hours. Commentators expressed their frustration at seeing such images.<\/em><\/p>\n

The negative backlash by social media users on his images also prompted Instagram to delete Tzion\u2019s account. According to the\u00a0BBC, this controversy has emerged at a time when relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are improving on the back of similar strategic concerns regarding Iran. The head of the Israeli army, Major-General Gadi Eizenkot has said that Israel as willing to share\u00a0\u201cintelligence information\u201d with Saudi Arabia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medina: Social media erupted in anger at images of an Israeli citizen who took photos of himself in\u00a0the Prophet Muhammad\u2019s (pbuh) Mosque in Madina (Masjid-e-Nabwi). BBC\u00a0reports that Russian born Ben Tzion has a history of posting images at religious locations across the Middle East, from Iran to Jordan. The image of him inside Masjid-e-Nabwi was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}