The key exerpts from the August 6th interview are translated and collected together for reference; I reproduce them here (boldface was in original; numerals, which I place in brackets, refer to footnotes -- see original):
1) Justification for suicide bombing attacks carried out against Israel and the rejection of the Jews' historical connection with the Land of Israel :
Interviewer : ...The Sharia' [Islamic law] forbids [acts of] aggression during jihad [holy war], such as the killing of women, children, the elderly, clerics who devote themselves to studying religion, and other civilians who do not serve in the enemy's army. Do you consider all the Jews in Palestine [sic] to be combatants and thieves of the land? We have witnessed suicide bombing [ ‘amaliyyat istishhadiyyah ] attacks on buses and in restaurants [in Israel ].
Osama Hamdan : First of all, let me raise a very important issue. What is the ruling regarding those who live in Palestine , or in what is called Israel , and [who are] aggressors who stole the land [i.e., “ Palestine ”]? The way we [i.e., Hamas] see it, they all came to Palestine from abroad, whether before the declaration of the [establishment of the ] Zionist entity or after it. If you were to conduct a statistical survey within the Zionist entity, you would find that all these people [i.e., the Jews living in Israel] have their origins in other countries – they came from Europe, Eastern Europe, from America, South America and other places [around the world].
Interviewer : In other words, there were no Palestinian Jews?
Osama Hamdan : No, there were no Palestinian Jews. When the British Mandate began in 1917, there was [only] one settlement on the lands of Palestine of a few dozen Jews who were living there illegally according to the law in force at the time. I want to note that under the Ottoman empire there was a law that prohibited the Jews from staying in Palestine for over a month [otherwise] their passports and personal documents were taken away from them. [Under the Ottoman empire] they [the Jews] were given permits to enter [ Palestine ] at the crossing [border] crossings and to stay on Palestinian land for a month. The only group that can be called Jewish [in Palestine ] at the time was the one living in Nablus and they still live there. [5] The Palestinians regard them as part of Palestinian society, and they number no more than a few hundred. Those who immigrated from various countries are not Jews. Anyone who comes to a war zone and stays there is a combatant, regardless of whether he wears a uniform. That's the first issue .
2) Justification for carrying out suicide bombing attacks on buses:
Osama Hamdan : [Regarding] the second issue, actually, neither Hamas nor the Palestinian resistance force premeditatedly killed [Israeli] civilians. You mentioned the buses. They [bus passengers] are a simpler case. A bus is protected by various security measures, [as opposed to] a school, a theater, or a stadium, those are civilian targets where the killing of women and children is deliberate. Those targets [i.e., schools, theaters and stadiums] were not targeted by the resistance. Why were buses targeted? Because they are the means of transportation used by the soldiers as well. The Zionist soldiers, who go from their homes to their bases and back, use public transportation, because it is free or almost free . I think there is a security motive behind the occupation [IDF] soldiers' use of public transportation. They shield themselves behind the so-called “civilians.” Therefore, as far as I can see, they should stop using public transportation, or else [Israeli] society should prevent them from using it, because the soldiers are the target. I would like to emphasize that in the dozens of operations that were carried out on buses, there were no cases in which the Zionists announced that 20 children or 50 women had been killed. Quite the opposite, if you examine who was killed in suicide bombing attacks on buses, you will find that 70% were occupation soldiers, and they were even in uniform at the time of the attack. [6]
3) The final objective: the destruction of the State of Israel
Osama Hamdan : We [i.e., Hamas] are preparing for a confrontation [with Israel ], not only in preparation for Israeli aggression, because the entity is founded on aggression, but because the final goal of the resistance [8] is to wipe this entity off the face of the earth . This goal necessitates the development of the resistance's until the entity has been destroyed.
I reproduce footnote [6] here:
6 The statement is incorrect. Most of the suicide bombing attacks carried out by Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations were directed against civilian targets such as buses, to murder indiscriminately as many civilians as possible. The overwhelming majority of the victims of suicide bombing attacks have been civilians, only a very few belonged to the security forces. Most of the civilians were killed or injured simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conspicuous among the casualties have been the high numbers of infants, young children, adolescents and the elderly. For further information see our December 20, 2005 Bulletin entitled “Suicide bombing terrorism during the current Israeli-Palestinian confrontation (September 2000 – December 2005)”
The key things to get out of this are as follows:
1) Hamas feels that killing non-combatants, including infants, is justified and justifiable -- "Anyone who comes to a war zone and stays there is a combatant, regardless of whether he wears a uniform."
2) The ultimate goal of Hamas is to "wipe [Israel] off the face of the earth" -- military and civilians, adults and children, men and women... the entire nation of Israel.
Put another way:
Hamas advocates and justifies the death of any and all Israelis; Hamas takes actions to kill any and all Israelis; Hamas openly admits it will continue to kill any and all Israelis.
Israel is facing a war of extermination perpetrated by what can only be described as the de facto heirs and kindred of those who orchestrated the Holocaust; unless Israel utterly destroys Hamas, the war is not over, and I have no doubt that should Hamas prevail, its war will continue as it finds a new focus for its hatred.
It is a fight to the death, and anyone with even the slightest pretension to civilization needs to support Israel against Hamas as long as Hamas continues on its current course.
The utter destruction of Hamas, as it now exists, equates to the survival of Israel vis-a-vis Hamas; those two goals are mutually interchangeable.
There can be no peace in the presence of people who advocate such ideas and who take active measures to implement them.
Consequently, unless Hamas clearly and convincingly changes its course (to include, but not to be limited to, the recognition that Israel has a right to exist, and the cessation of attacks against non-combatants), there is no substitute for absolute victory, which means:
1) The unconditional surrender of Hamas;
2) The dismantlement of Hamas as an organization;
and
3) The lawful trial for criminal conduct of any Hamas members who fall into Israeli or international custody and are so accused.
If anything less than this is accepted, the world will be a shabby and dangerous place indeed.
Peace through Victory!
No comments:
Post a Comment