Hamas Is Not Just a Threat to Jews
This is a guest post by Michael Weiss of Jewcy
I have already tried to show how Hamas has failed the people of Palestine politically, and how even the most optimistic appraisal of the organization’s supposed “pragmatism” has failed to pan out, even under exigent circumstances in which pragmatism should surely trump ideological purity. However, lest one come away with the narrow assumption that Hamas’s theocratic fascism represents a direct long-term threat only to Jews, I invite you to consider the following speech made by Ahmad Bahr, the Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (and a Hamas member), on April 13, 2007. Coming as these words do from the political equivalent of Nancy Pelosi in Palestine, they should not be easily dismissed as mere rhetoric:
“You will be victorious on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet.” Yes, [the Koran says that] “you will be victorious,” but only “if you are believers.” Allah willing, “you will be victorious,” while America and Israel will be annihilated, Allah willing. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards, as is said in the Book of Allah: “You shall find them the people most eager to protect their lives.” They are cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America’s nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere. America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims “will be victorious, if you are believers.” Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America. We saw to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel.
I tell you that we will protect the enterprise of the resistance, because the Zionist enemy understands only the language of force. It does not recognize peace or the agreements. It does not recognize anything, and it understands only the language of force. Our jihad-fighting Palestinian people salutes its brother, Sudan.
The Palestinian woman bids her son farewell, and says to him: “Son, go and don’t be a coward. Go, and fight the Jews.” He bids her farewell and carries out a martyrdom operation. What did this Palestinian woman say when she was asked for her opinion, after the martyrdom of her son? She said: “My son is my own flesh and blood. I love my son, but my love for Allah and His Messenger is greater than my love for my son.” Yes, this is the message of the Palestinian woman, who was over 70 years old–Fatima al-Najjar. She was over 70 years old, but she blew herself up for the sake of Allah, bringing down many criminal Zionists.
Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, vanquish the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet, defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them.
One has heard about the cult of death that underwrites Islamic attentats, and it would certainly not strike most Western ears as newsworthy that Hamas is a fundamentally anti-Semitic movement. But that it is openly dedicated to the “annihilation of America” should hit home with sympathizers and apologists, eager to invoke sinister and histrionic moral equivalences between the current Israeli incursion into Gaza and 9/11, and eager to view Hamas as pledged to little more than national “resistance,” albeit draped in colorful religious garb. If anything, Hamas’ anti-American sentiments reflect Iran’s supervisory role as both the party’s main financier and as its imperial guardian in an ideological war that extends well beyond the borders of the modern Levant. (For more on this subject, see Robert Kaplan’s excellent new piece in the Atlantic.)
Unmistakable, too, in the above passage is Bahr’s unctuous tribute to “Sudan.” By this I think we’re on safe ground to assume he was not referring to the black African Muslims being systematically raped, dispossessed, and slaughtered by the Khartoum-backed janjaweed in Darfur; he was referring to the slaughterers themselves. And here it pays to recalls that this note of solidarity with the genocidaires of Sudan was also struck by Osama bin Laden in 2006, who called for global jihadists to wage war against the “crusader thieves” seeking to disrupt God’s good work of racial cleansing below the Sahara. (The “crusader thieves” in this instance were U.N. peacekeeping troops, many of whom were Muslims.)
While it’s true that Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who blames the West for “homosexuality, homelessness and AIDS,” has in the past stated that he would not “rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state,” since his party’s bloody takeover of the internal security apparatus of Gaza in 2007, both its direct actions and its callous indifference toward the actions of non-state actors have abundantly indicated the opposite. Violence, coupled with what scholars of totalitarianism used to call “terror in reserve,” have been the mainstays of repressing anyone flouting the implemented policies of Koranic literalism.
A year ago, Hamas agents looted and then burned down a centuries-old Greek Orthodox church and monastery in Gaza. Non-Muslim and Muslim women apostates have been ordered to take the veil, and the consumption of alcohol has been outlawed, regardless of one’s monotheistic covenant. There have also been reports about forced conversions of Palestinian Christians, one of whom, Sana al-Sayegh, is a prominent dean of the Science and Technology Faculty at the University of Palestine International, was alleged to have been kidnapped and married off to a Muslim professor at the university with the complicity of the institution’s president, himself an Hamas accomplice. (The representative of one human rights organization in Palestine claims al-Sayegh converted willingly, but her family insist she did so at gunpoint and is now living under a state of religious siege; they also say she phoned them once to explain as much. Whatever the case, it must be acknowledged that the Science and Technology curriculum al-Sayegh was allowed to use before Hamas came to power bears a striking dissimiliarity to the one currently in existence.)
Meanwhile, proxies seeking to impress or outdo the ruling regime in messianic fervor have been given license to terrorize with impunity in the Strip. Jihadia Salafiya, a so-called Islamic outreach movement, which was only able to establish its “military wing” following the Hamas coup, is quite candid about its zero-tolerance attitude towards sharia trangression. In May 2007, militants attacked a United Nations-run school for the crime of allowing its students to participate in co-ed athletics. A month later, the group desecrated Gaza’s Latin Church and stole academic equipment from the adjacent Rosary Sisters School. And in October 2007, Rami Ayyad, director of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, which has previously been firebombed, was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds, his body bearing signs of torture. Though no group took reponsibility for his murder, Jihadia Salafiya’s chief spokesman Sheik Abu Saqer had this to say in an interview with the New York Sun:
I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza… Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity….Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped. If it goes on, we’ll attack these things very harshly.
What this indicates is a fully Talibanized statelet on the Mediterranean, doubly appalling when one considers that Palestinian Christians — who number in Gaza about 3,000 of the total population of 1.5 million — have for decades been at the forefront of Palestinian rights advocacy in the West. Can it ever be emphasized enough that under any future Hamas-run “Islamic State of Palestine,” Hanan Ashrawi, Rashid Khalidi, and Edward Said (were he still alive) would be designated second-class citizens, if not outright refused the right of return?
Comments
| 6 January 2009, 4:55 pm |
Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting piece comparing Hamas to the Nazis.
| 6 January 2009, 5:11 pm |
Israel is now targeting UN schools, how sick can you possibly be?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7814054.stm
“This is the second Israeli air strike on a UN-run school in a day. Earlier, at least three Palestinians were killed when a school was hit in the Shati camp, UN officials said.”
It seems Israel no longer cares about PR. Because they never cared about civilians just pretended to.
| 6 January 2009, 5:14 pm |
It’s all a bit rubbish isn’t it?
Israel’s government’s actions don’t just hurt the Palestinians either. For every attack they breed a new, more committed terrorist. It’s Bloody Sunday times a thousand.
Terrorism can’t be allowed to go ahead, can’t be tolerated, can’t be dismissed. But Israel’s responses are only storing up problems for the future.
A child, a brother, a sister who has lost his family doesn’t care if Hamas shot first.
| 6 January 2009, 5:14 pm |
It seems Israel has won the PR, at least in the United States, Flanks.
| 6 January 2009, 5:23 pm |
It seems Israel no longer cares about PR
To be fair, Israel has been fighting a losing battle on that score. Hamas is far better at it, so I can’t blame Israel for giving up. Everyone loves an underdog and all that
| 6 January 2009, 5:24 pm |
Does anybody not believe that Hamas deliberately places it’s rocket launchers, weapons caches, and command centers in mosques, schools and hospitals?
| 6 January 2009, 5:26 pm |
Please Mesq, that is like crowing that the democrats won Cali, please… That is a given but Israel knows very well they lose everywhere else, and that everywhere else pressures them and the US to stop the war, that is how they lost in Lebanon recently, sure Hezzbollah had considerable military successes but it was the international community that crushed the offensive. That same international community that tries to end the current bloodshed.
That said if there was truly free media in the US they should see this schoolhouse brutality, and Israel would have to lose at least some support, give or take the individual gringo’s Islamophobia.
Israel is no better than Hamas. They just have fancy PR.
| 6 January 2009, 5:27 pm |
“Does anybody not believe that Hamas deliberately places it’s rocket launchers, weapons caches, and command centers in mosques, schools and hospitals?”
UN CONTROLLED SCHOOLS????
The gall of the apologists.
| 6 January 2009, 5:28 pm |
Israel is no better than Hamas.
There you have it.
| 6 January 2009, 5:31 pm |
Do you not believe, Flanker, that Hamas deliberately places rocket launchers, weapons caches, and command centers in mosques, schools, and hospitals under its control?
| 6 January 2009, 5:32 pm |
How many people have Hamas killed Mesquito? how many people has Israel killed? 10-1?
Seriously Hamas does not give a shit about PR, they admit they target civilians, Israel denies this yet somehow manages to kill 100 of them while Hamas can barely kill 5. Oh but they don’t “target” children… after this incident yeah right.
| 6 January 2009, 5:33 pm |
“Do you not believe, Flanker, that Hamas deliberately places rocket launchers, weapons caches, and command centers in mosques, schools, and hospitals under its control?”
AGAIN, UN CONTROL!!!!
Are you people BLIND? CAN YOU NOT READ?
| 6 January 2009, 5:34 pm |
I take it, Flanker, that you believe Hamas deliberately places rocket launchers, weapons caches, and command centers in mosques, schools and hospitals under its control.
| 6 January 2009, 5:36 pm |
“JERUSALEM (AP) - An Israeli official says Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers from the courtyard of a U.N. school where dozens of people died in fiery explosions. ”
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I would not be surprised if it is.
| 6 January 2009, 5:45 pm |
“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I would not be surprised if it is.”
Bullshit of course
“After the first attack, the director of operations for Unrwa, John Ging, said the conditions in Gaza were “horrific”.
Head of Unrwa John Ging: ‘The international community has a responsibility to act’
“Nowhere is safe for civilians here in Gaza at the moment. They are fleeing their homes and they are right to do it when you look at the casualty numbers.”
“It’s very, very dangerous, and even the 14,000 who have sought refuge in our schools and shelters, they are not safe either.”
Mr Ging said international leaders had a responsibility to act to protect civilians.
“You cannot conduct huge military operations in such densely-populated places without killing hundreds and injuring thousands of civilians,” he added. ”
The head of the Unrwa is correct, Israel is targetting them precisely to terrorize the Palestinians, proving to them that nowhere, not even the UN can save them.
| 6 January 2009, 5:45 pm |
Flanker, you argue like a retarded one. So if the relation of victims is
not 1:1 the party with most of the victims is right?
This is the logic of a retarded 6 year old child.
Those who invested the aid money in weapons and fire since years on Israeli towns and villages are responsible.
Those who hide behind children and women are responsible.
Those who incite in their mosques and schools to kill Jews are responsible.
| 6 January 2009, 5:47 pm |
And those that bomb schools are responsible.
All of you are responsible, IDF, Hamas, apologists, all of you.
| 6 January 2009, 5:48 pm |
What I see is a tragedy on top of a tragedy.
All the innocent lives lost in Gaza and in Israel, display loudly and graphically the lowliness, the ghastliness, the vileness that is war, however necessary and legitimate.
For some, and we have seen examples on this very page, to use this vista of tragedy, to engender more hatred, and to vilify, is heaping more debasement onto a hideous situation.
Those who are not motivated by hate, and who honestly and truthfully wish for people to live in peace, and for whom the losses that have come about these few days are truly upsetting, should focus on diminishing hatred.
May The Almighty spread the shelter of His peace over all the dwellers on earth.
| 6 January 2009, 5:57 pm |
Ah yes, “once they’e finished with Israel, they’ll come after you”
One of the great scaremongering canards in this whole issue
| 6 January 2009, 5:58 pm |
I rather be accused and convicted of manipulating tragedy, than to allow Israeli crimes to go unnoticed. If I have to insult every single one of you to bring attention to what really matters, not idiocy like the brain fart thread or who said what thread, then so be it.
| 6 January 2009, 6:01 pm |
The first thing that strikes me about this is that a few years ago, in this comment section, I detailed this attitude, the sort of psychology that Ahmad Bahr evinces and was roundly called a bigot. Now before someone says that there is a difference between quoting a politician and attributing an attitude to the public in Muslim societies, I will point out that no politician makes a speech that he doesn’t think will be liked by his constituents. Ahmad Bahr is saying these things precisely because much of his constituency already feels that way.
| 6 January 2009, 6:04 pm |
Sadly the issue today is that “Israel is not just a threat to Hamas”.
| 6 January 2009, 6:07 pm |
““once they’e finished with Israel, they’ll come after you”
One of the great scaremongering canards in this whole issue”
Actually “first they came for the Jews” does sound kind of familiar, I wonder from where?
| 6 January 2009, 6:15 pm |
Flanker:
“AGAIN, UN CONTROL!!!!
Are you people BLIND? CAN YOU NOT READ?”
You can stop shouting, we have been able to read for a long, long time.
We were able to read when the terrorists in Lebanon were setting up their missile launchers within a stone’s throw of UN monitor stations.
We are able to see when the mainstream media publish photographs of grieving palestinian fathers holding their dead babies. And it has not escaped our notice that sometime the same dead baby shows up in the arms of several different grieving fathers. Funny that.
We have become inured to the histrionics coming out of pallywood.
| 6 January 2009, 6:25 pm |
“We were able to read when the terrorists in Lebanon were setting up their missile launchers within a stone’s throw of UN monitor stations.”
Well you apperantly are unaware that now Hamas had booby-trapped the UN shelter, or at least according to the IDF…
Face it your side is at least twice as deceptive as the Palestinian people, with massive resources to boot, and even yet you fuck up with this nonsense.
You don’t care about human suffering? big deal, the rest of the world still cares though.
| 6 January 2009, 6:27 pm |
I rather be accused and convicted of manipulating tragedy, than to allow Israeli crimes to go unnoticed
So not only a lying Jew-hater, but pompous and self-important. What a combo.
| 6 January 2009, 6:29 pm |
All of you are responsible, IDF, Hamas, apologists, all of you
More screeching pomposity.
Did someone say ‘like’ a retard?
| 6 January 2009, 6:30 pm |
Terrorism can’t be allowed to go ahead, can’t be tolerated, can’t be dismissed. But Israel’s responses are only storing up problems for the future.
So do tell us how to ‘not allow terrorism to go ahead’, oh Wise One.
| 6 January 2009, 6:32 pm |
How many people have Hamas killed Mesquito? how many people has Israel killed? 10-1?
And more of this dumb numbers nonsense.
| 6 January 2009, 6:32 pm |
Flanker, have you yet conceded that Hamas deliberately places it’s rocket launchers, weapons caches, and command centers in mosques, schools and hospitals?
| 6 January 2009, 6:41 pm |
The civilian casualties have been minimal considering that this is a war and that Hamas has deliberately used them as human shields. Most of the dead are Hamas militants.
| 6 January 2009, 6:48 pm |
75% are Hamas, 25% civilians, so for every bomb Israel drops they KNOW they will kill an innocent civilian, and they still do it because the apologists here will lap up whatever excuse they give.
Nearly Oxfordian, indeed I will make sure their crimes do not go unnoticed on this site, it is my humble contribution to world peace.
| 6 January 2009, 6:51 pm |
75% are Hamas, 25% civilians, so for every bomb Israel drops they KNOW they will kill an innocent civilian
Eh? How do you figure they “KNOW they will kill an innocent civilian”. That 25% figure just means there is a one in four chance they will.
“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I would not be surprised if it is.”
Bullshit of course
Why is it bullshit? Proof please. Thanks
| 6 January 2009, 6:52 pm |
Flanker I presume you are a pacifist?
I ask, because any time any country goes to war, it KNOWS that innocent people will tragically die. Therefore by your understanding all wars are illegitimate.
There is a difference between knowing that despite your best efforts innocents will die, and deliberately killing innocent civilians as an aim in itself.
| 6 January 2009, 6:52 pm |
Flanker awards Flanker the Flanker Medal of Peace 2009
| 6 January 2009, 7:02 pm |
Oh look, someone posted the words of that Hamas bigwig in a usual Hamas-lovefest at Pickled Politics and that cunt who runs the site deleted them as “trolling”.
| 6 January 2009, 7:03 pm |
Why hasn’t flanker smuggled himself into Gaza if he believes what he is spouting?
| 6 January 2009, 7:18 pm |
malkin has the videos of Hammas firing mortars from the safety of UNrwa boys schools
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/06/about-that-israeli-strike-on-the-un-school/
| 6 January 2009, 7:23 pm |
Flanker appears to be missing the point. Yes, Israel does know she will kill civilians.
But what you are saying is tantamount to expecting her to care more for the lives of the Palestinians than their own government, Hamas, does.
If you want to direct your anger over Palestinian innocents dying, then kindly direct it where it *belongs*. At Hamas - the terrorist group which publicly BOASTS about using women and children as human shields.
The Palestinians freely elected Hamas as their representatives. They chose terrorists. Why on earth should innocent Israelis pay the price for that decision?
| 6 January 2009, 7:38 pm |
RE: All of you are responsible, IDF, Hamas, apologists, all of you.
But not you, eh Flanker. Only you it seems are not responsible. what a flippin joke.
| 6 January 2009, 10:01 pm |
Yes, Ronald Thompson. There’s no responsibility on the part of Palestinians for electing Hamas whose electoral slate included the lovely Um Nidal, mother of three shahids, whose campaign funds likely are based on the monthly stipend she received. None.
As Golda Meir said, there will be peace when the Palestinians love their children more than they hate Israelis. Otherwise, the Palestinians would focus on political resolutions instead of having large families from which to provide a steady stream of volunteers for the various armed factions.
| 6 January 2009, 11:00 pm |
“The rest of the world care about the slaughter” in Gaza, but what happens in Gaza from time to time happens in Iraq every day, and I see no evidence that the the rest of the world cares a fig. Especially, in the Islamic world, from Finsbury to Lahore.
| 6 January 2009, 11:18 pm |
What Josh said. The jibe of “anti-Islam bigot” that used to be thrown about by sundry lefties is wearing very thin in the face of the deluge of facts that confirm that what we “anti-Islam bigots” have been saying for years is in fact the truth.
The video here is a little confused, but if what the [Arab] commentator is saying is true, Hamas is every bit as nasty as the worst elements of the Taliban, turning Gaza into a living hell. When they took over Gaza, Hamas made it quite clear that they were Salafists - wanting to return to 7th century culture, though they knew it would take some time to do. I hope the IDF has plenty of video of what they find in Gaza.
| 7 January 2009, 12:05 am |
Well this article tells us nothing we didn’t know of course.
Hamas are followers of Islam first and Palestinian second.
Which means they are more interested in taking over the whole planet rather than seeking a two state solution.
As for destroying America - how will they do that? Well - what do you think? Ask yourself why Al Queda got a Fatwa to kill 10 million Americans and why Islamists are always fascinated by the example of Hiroshima.
It’s clear to me that they will use nuclear weapons on the USA and its allies and places important to other religions, like Rome, if they ever get the chance.
I think the Gaza/West Bank split is quite interesting also. It seems that Gaza, has naturally enough always been orientated towards Egypt and people there have lots of relatives on the Egyptian side. Hamas was a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
| 7 January 2009, 1:24 am |
It turns out the Hamas fighters weren’t in the school, nor were the Israelis shooting at the school. The fire didn’t come from the school, and the Israelis weren’t shooting at the school. It’s unfortunate that Hamas chose to fight right next to a school, but they never worry much about their casualties or do anything to protect their civilians.
What’s more interesting is how quickly Fwanker and the others were ready to say “Israel targeted a school run by the UN, no terrorists there” before knowing any of the facts. That’s how it is with ideologues and propagandists.
| 7 January 2009, 3:14 am |
Can I make the humble suggestion that Flanker, no doubt culturally a Latin Christian, make a pilgrimage to Gaza (when the violence has finished preferably) and do some outreach work with the Christians of Gaza. Could be interesting to see how he fares.
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