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Hamas: US, Israel provoking tensions
The political leader of a Palestinian resistance movement has said the US and Israel are responsible for last week's clashes between Hamas activists and Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to journalists after meeting other Damascus-based Palestinian factions on Tuesday, Khaled Mashaal warned against internal fighting and called for national unity.
He said it was necessary to solve "differences through dialogue to enable the Palestinians to continue the battle of liberating Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestinian lands".
Referring to the Gaza clashes, Mashaal said: "There is foreign pressure and incitement" - alluding to pressure from Washington and Israel for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to disarm Hamas.
In the worst fighting between Hamas and Palestinian police in nearly a decade, three people were killed on Sunday, including the deputy police chief in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City. The officer was shot in the head after he and his men ran out of bullets during a Hamas assault on their station.
Second opinion
A second senior Hamas figure, Abu Muhammad Mustafa, told Aljazerra that faction leaders at the talks had "denounced recent incidents and banned the use of arms to settle Palestinian internal disputes".
Adding that some groups in the Palestinian Authority (PA) were working with the US to tarnish the resistance movement’s image, Abu Muhammad said: "We are keen to keep arms … for defending the Palestinian people against the enemy."
He said it was the PA that was guilty of using weapons irresponsibly.
Politics and resistance
The infighting underscored the difficulties Abbas and his security forces face in trying to take control of Gaza. Since Israel's unilateral disengagement from the coastal territory last month, Hamas's public displays have challenged Abbas.
In a statement issued after the Damascus meeting, also attended by Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO's mainstream Fatah movement, faction leaders stressed "the Palestinian right of resistance until all legitimate rights are achieved".
They also urged all Palestinian factions to avoid fighting over internal differences.
Mashaal warned that "no one has the right to interfere in internal Palestinian affairs even if it was the US administration".
He rejected US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's demand that Hamas disarm. "As long as our land is occupied, the Palestinian people and their factions have the right to jointly resist and play a political role."
Rice said last week that Hamas could not participate in Palestinian politics if it remained armed.
"You cannot simultaneously keep an option on politics and an option on violence," she said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EBEEBE77-2D82-48D3-8EB7-C37A71993EC9.htm
He said it was necessary to solve "differences through dialogue to enable the Palestinians to continue the battle of liberating Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestinian lands".
Referring to the Gaza clashes, Mashaal said: "There is foreign pressure and incitement" - alluding to pressure from Washington and Israel for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to disarm Hamas.
In the worst fighting between Hamas and Palestinian police in nearly a decade, three people were killed on Sunday, including the deputy police chief in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City. The officer was shot in the head after he and his men ran out of bullets during a Hamas assault on their station.
Second opinion
A second senior Hamas figure, Abu Muhammad Mustafa, told Aljazerra that faction leaders at the talks had "denounced recent incidents and banned the use of arms to settle Palestinian internal disputes".
Adding that some groups in the Palestinian Authority (PA) were working with the US to tarnish the resistance movement’s image, Abu Muhammad said: "We are keen to keep arms … for defending the Palestinian people against the enemy."
He said it was the PA that was guilty of using weapons irresponsibly.
Politics and resistance
The infighting underscored the difficulties Abbas and his security forces face in trying to take control of Gaza. Since Israel's unilateral disengagement from the coastal territory last month, Hamas's public displays have challenged Abbas.
In a statement issued after the Damascus meeting, also attended by Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO's mainstream Fatah movement, faction leaders stressed "the Palestinian right of resistance until all legitimate rights are achieved".
They also urged all Palestinian factions to avoid fighting over internal differences.
Mashaal warned that "no one has the right to interfere in internal Palestinian affairs even if it was the US administration".
He rejected US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's demand that Hamas disarm. "As long as our land is occupied, the Palestinian people and their factions have the right to jointly resist and play a political role."
Rice said last week that Hamas could not participate in Palestinian politics if it remained armed.
"You cannot simultaneously keep an option on politics and an option on violence," she said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EBEEBE77-2D82-48D3-8EB7-C37A71993EC9.htm
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These events have exposed the fraud of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s so-called “disengagement” from Gaza. Far from being a first step towards alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people—normalising relations between Israel and Palestine, and creating an independent Palestinian state, as the Western powers have claimed—the pullout has been a preliminary to a sustained military and political offensive against the Palestinians. The largest offensive since the assault on Jenin in April 2002, its purpose is to terrorise and intimidate the Palestinian people and cripple Hamas, the largest Islamist party, as a political force.
Israel was determined to prevent Hamas from making political gains in both the local elections on September 29 and the parliamentary elections due in January next year. The elections are widely expected to further erode support for Fatah, the main faction within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) headed by Israel’s main political partner, Mahmoud Abbas
Israel’s actions, though directed against Hamas, are meant as a warning to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. After months in which Tel Aviv has insisted that the PA move to suppress all opposition to Israeli authority, Sharon’s actions serve notice that the only Palestinian regime he will tolerate is one that is totally subservient to Israel’s needs.
The world’s press has kept its coverage of these crimes off the front pages. Not one editorial has seen fit to mention it, let alone denounce Israel’s assault on the Palestinians’ physical, social and political infrastructure and Tel Aviv’s gross interference with the elections. Needless to say, both the Bush and Blair administrations have been silent.
Israel seized the opportunity to launch an offensive against Gaza after Hamas fired a handful of homemade rockets against the southern town of Sederot in Israel close to the Gaza Strip, injuring several people. Hamas said this was in response to an Israeli air force attack on one of Hamas’s victory rallies in Gaza on September 23 that killed 21 people. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority denied this, saying that there had been no air strike and that Hamas had accidentally set off the rockets, which were on display at the rally.
Read More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/hama-o05.shtml
Rice, going beyond past U.S. statements on the issue, said Friday that Hamas cannot remain an armed organization and also participate in the PA political process.
"Hamas is a terror organization and it has to be disbanded, both for the sake of peace and security in the Middle East and for the sake of the proper functioning of the Palestinian Authority. After all, under the road map, the Palestinian Authority has undertaken to disband militias and armed resistance groups," Rice said in an address.
"Hamas," she continued, "stands for a one-state solution, not a two-state solution. Hamas therefore stands for the destruction of Israel. Hamas is an organization that asks Palestinian mothers and fathers to give their children up to make themselves suicide bombers. And it is a real detriment and block to further peace in the Middle East."
But Meshaal, speaking at a joint news conference with hardline PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi, said, "So long as our land is occupied it is the right of the Palestinian people and their factions to combine resistance and political activities. Resistance and its arms are directed against the occupation while political activity is part of re-arranging the Palestinian home."
Meshaal and Kaddoumi took leading roles in a meeting of Palestinian factions including rivals Fatah and Hamas, which pledged on Tuesday to refrain from violence in settling Palestinian problems after a firefight between Hamas activists and Palestinian police left three dead.
Read More
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/632100.html
Hamas vows to 'drink' Jewish blood
See terrorist group's video with messages for Israelis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 16, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Shortly after its stunning election victory, Hamas posted on its official website parting video messages from two suicide bombers, including one who vowed the terrorist group would drink the blood of Jews until they "leave the Muslim countries."
Another terrorist urged his mother to be joyous over his death and his "wedding" with the "Maidens of Paradise."
The terrorist act glorified in the video, which can be viewed here, took place Dec. 7, 2004, reported Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch. Hamas, responsible for more than 100 suicide bombings and scores of shooting and rocket attacks, won overwhelmingly in the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections and will form the next government.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48844
"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."
The second terrorist declared:
"In the name of Allah, we will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, [and] purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country... This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."
The second terrorist also told how he saw his death for Allah as a wedding:
"I dedicate this wedding to all of those who have chosen Allah as their goal, the Quran as their constitution and the prophet [Muhammad] as their role model. Jihad is the only way to liberate Palestine – all of Palestine – from the impurity of the Jews."
He then spoke directly to his mother.
"My dear mother, you who have cared for me, today I sacrifice my life to be your intercessor (on Judgment Day). O my love and soul, wipe your tears, don't be saddened. In the name of Allah, I've achieve all that I've aspired. Don't let me see you sad on my wedding day with the Maidens of Paradise. So be happy and not sad, because in the name of Allah, after death is merciful Allah's paradise."
The clip has a farewell scene in which the mother helps the terrorist don his explosive vest. The scene is accompanying by a song with the lyrics, "My dear mother, don't cry over us."
Palestinian Media Watch notes the lyrics are similar to a music video that ran on Palestinian Authority television for years in which a boy asks his parents to be happy over his coming death: "My beloved, my mother, dearest to me most. Be joyous over my blood and do not cry for me."
The Israeli news monitor commented that on numerous occasions, the final messages of Palestinian suicide bombers reflected what they had been hearing in the PA media.
After filming their goodbyes, the two Hamas suicide terrorists went to the Gaza Strip's Karni Crossing and killed an Israeli soldier.
The clip also has scenes of terrorists preparing a tunnel and hiding explosives in it.
The Israeli news monitor commented that on numerous occasions, the final messages of Palestinian suicide bombers reflected what they had been hearing in the PA media.
After filming their goodbyes, the two Hamas suicide terrorists went to the Gaza Strip's Karni Crossing and killed an Israeli soldier.
The clip also has scenes of terrorists preparing a tunnel and hiding explosives in it.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48844
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 20, 2006
The swearing-in of a Hamas legislature in Ramallah on Saturday can be seen as symbolizing Israel’s and the West’s failure to preempt the Islamist threat, instead letting it grow to emergency proportions through various kinds of temporizing and self-delusion. Britain, France, and Germany were assigned to use “soft power” and hold endless talks with Iran until a particularly lunatic and dangerous leader was elected while Iran’s nuclear program advanced to the point of no return. Israel, after drubbing Hamas militarily during 2004, accepted a ceasefire, handed Hamas a territorial base in Gaza, allowed it to run for office, and now faces a Nazi regime on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
A particularly amazing case of prevarication and passivity emerged last week when Israeli security officials warned of a “large-scale disaster,” and urged emergency preparations, in case Kassam rockets fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza hit sensitive facilities, including chemical storage tanks, in nearby Ashkelon. Seemingly, the best way to cope with a threat of thousands of people being burned or gassed to death through an artillery strike is not passive preparations, but military action against the threat. But since effective action entails reinvading Gaza and this is considered politically inexpedient for many reasons, it is considered preferable to gamble with the lives of thousands.
Meanwhile, only weeks after it was elected, Hamas’s legitimation by the world community continues. President Putin, having already invited Hamas leaders for talks while reportedly considering weapon sales to the organization, has taken the lead in signaling that an Islamist terror group—even one known to be closely allied with “his own” Chechen rebels—is different from all others if it is mainly anti-Jewish. Turkey, often cited as a successful case of Islamic secularization and democracy, has already wined and dined Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, whom Israel tried to assassinate in Amman in 1997. The message is the same: whereas Muslim anti-Turkish terror leader Abdullah Ojalan sits in a Turkish prison for life, Mashaal only kills Jews and is an honored guest.
Meanwhile Europe, while making proper noises about the “unacceptable” nature of a Hamas government, is continuing financial aid to the PA while it “waits and sees” what sort of regime takes shape—which means, in translation, finding ways to keep paying the jizya to Europe’s Islamic attackers/protectors. And while America, to its credit, has stopped direct aid to the PA and is encouraging other countries to do the same, it is also urging that highly fungible “humanitarian” aid be continued—suggesting that Palestinians must always be coddled even when they elect an overtly genocidal government, and that the PA, unlike the Taliban or Saddam regimes, always has to be nurtured and sustained, never invaded and dismantled by its mortally endangered neighbor Israel.
The constant posing of conditions to Hamas of recognizing Israel, disarming, and changing its charter, in which Israel’s caretaker Olmert government goes along with the Quartet, also signals that Hamas is a potentially rational, constructive force, steadily dilutes awareness of its real nature, and gives it a bonanza of opportunities to exploit Western useful idiocy. It was, after all, Yasser Arafat’s “recognition” of Israel in 1988, and continued skillful pandering to Israeli and Western dreams and delusions, that allowed him to attain land, weapons, aid, a Nobel Peace Prize, and a launching pad to wage a savage terror war against Israel. Hamas is already said to be considering cosmetic changes in its charter, and in PA president Mahmoud Abbas—an iconic “Palestinian moderate”—has an ideal fig leaf to make use of. What is already clear is that Hamas somehow has a different status than the Taliban or Al Qaeda as an organization always on the verge of “reforming” and reaping the rewards.
From President Carter’s support for the Khomeini regime to Israel’s creation and cultivation of the PA with President Clinton’s fervent encouragement, it’s the same story of the West tolerating, excusing, and even bolstering enemies in the hope of achieving an ideal world where one not only has freedom and comfort but never has to fight for them. Although even the relatively realistic Bush administration cannot quite treat Hamas as the irredeemable, unchangeable Nazi movement that it is, there are rumors and hopes that the U.S. has no such nuances about the Ahmadinejad regime and is preparing to take effective action. But even if America, or Israel, should act, fanatic Islam is now so well positioned and has so many power bases that it may exact terrible vengeance.
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=21367
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