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And he's off to such a wonderful start. An interview with a Hamas founder, Mahmoud Zahar, in Spiegel Online (thanks to all who sent this in):
Mahmoud Zahar -- a founder of Hamas, and one of its most militant hardliners -- has called for an Islamic state in the Gaza Strip. After the Hamas takeover of the territory last week, he's also threatened Fatah with more violence in the West Bank.SPIEGEL ONLINE: After heavy fighting, Hamas won control over the Gaza Strip last Saturday. But it's not clear what your party now intends to do. The assumption in the Western world is that Hamas wants to establish an Islamic state in Gaza. Is this true?
Zahar: Of course. We want to do that, but with full support of the people. At the moment we can't establish an Islamic state because we Palestinians have no state. As long as we don't have a state, we will try to form an Islamic society.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would a Hamas-led Islamic state look?
Zahar: There would be no difference from how it looks today, because our customs and traditions in Gaza are already Islamic. Marriage, divorce, daily business -- everything is Islamic. As soon as we have a state, then everyone will have their freedom. Christians will remain Christians, parties could be secular or even Communist.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If an Islamic state is the ideal, why are there not more of them?
Zahar: If there were free and fair elections throughout the Arab world, Islamic forms of government would win everywhere. Islam is against the corruption, weakening, and materialism which have destroyed societies in Europe and America. Families are broken (in the West); there are AIDS and drugs. We don't have such things here.
Sure. You have little children calling for genocide. You're a very moral bunch.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What will Hamas' future relationship to Israel be?Zahar: We are ready to speak with everyone about everything. Of course we have to speak with the Israelis, de facto, for example over trade. We also have to speak with them about cross-border issues, like the movement of severely ill patients and protection from bird flu and how we can avoid environmental catastrophes. We won't discuss politics, because the Israelis have no political agenda with us. The political agenda of Condoleezza Rice and Ehud Olmert with President Mahmoud Abbas consists of trading kisses every two weeks -- but with empty hands. We will only talk about essential things.
Such as, how will you make it easier for us to kill you?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the West there is a fear that the Gaza Strip may become a playground for international terrorism. Is this danger real?Zahar: Our people can't distinguish between resistance and terrorism. We're fighting for the liberation of our land from an occupation. When people in Europe had to fight the Nazis, they were honored, later, as freedom fighters. No one would have called Charles de Gaulle a terrorist.
Right. Did Charles de Gaulle exult in the killing of civilians and call for Germany to be wiped off the map?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The militant wings of Fatah and Hamas have been fully armed over the last few months. Are these weapons still in circulation?Zahar: There are naturally very many weapons around now. Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 -- now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America
Hey, don't mention it, big guy!
There is quite a bit more. Read it all.
Posted by Robert at June 24, 2007 7:36 AM
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"If an Islamic state is the ideal, why are there not more of them?"
That would appear to be the $64,000 question.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 24, 2007 7:59 AM
Reading his thanks to America for helping lower the price of bullets was pretty obscene. One would think that there would be a major rethinking of policy after we've wasted so much aid, but no, we're just going to forge onward as before, helping Fatah once again, for less than nothing back.
Posted by: jewdog at June 24, 2007 8:22 AM
Obscene is right.
Someone remind me please, why is aid being sent to those who are our sworn enemies ?
at June 24, 2007 8:48 AM
Can anyone tell me where in the Koran it says "spreading the faith through violence" or similar phrasing. This would be a Medinan verse.
'preciate it.
Posted by: darcy at June 24, 2007 9:04 AM
Yes all women will have to wear binbags and stay indoors unless they have a husband or blood relative to take them out. We will start to cut off hands and feet for minor infractions and stone adulterers. Not forgetting of course any woman who cannot find four independant witnesses if she is raped is an adulterer (4 witnesses if they are male of course a woman witness only counts half that of a man). Welcome to Sharia Law people of Gaza
Posted by: Realist at June 24, 2007 9:07 AM
"there are AIDS and drugs. We don't have such things here."
From the article.
AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa
http://data.unaids.org/pub/EpiReport/2006/20061121_EPI_FS_MENA_en.pdf
UNAIDS estimates that 510,000 people in the Middle East are living with HIV, although some experts say that the actual figure likely is higher (AFP/Khaleej Times, 8/16).
http://www.thebody.com/content/confs/aids2006/art7897.html
HIV/AIDS in Palestinian Authority (West Bank and Gaza Strip)
The United Nations does not currently publish HIV/AIDS epidemiological fact sheets for this country. UNAIDS HIV/AIDS data are not available.
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr06-we-00
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/oPt_statistics.html
Attitudes of health staff in Gaza Strip-Palestine towards HIV/AIDS patients.
http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/102281352.html
Al-Qaeda is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/sunday/tm_method=full%26objectid=16559740%26siteid=98487-name_page.html
Yes, imagine that perfect Islamic state where a disease don't exist unless you say it does, or unless you can use it as a weapon. Where rape is not only okay but is a team sport, but reporting rape is suicide. Where multiple wives can catch the same disease the husband caught from his temporary "travel" wife, the boy he sodomizes or the girl he forces to clean his house as as a slave (or perhaps his goat for certain illnesses).
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at June 24, 2007 9:22 AM
"Our people can't distinguish between resistance and terrorism. We're fighting for the liberation of our land from an occupation."
-- from the article above
The word "occupation" has been accepted, foolishly, by too many in the West to adequately describe Israel's taking possession, because of its victory in the Six-Day War thrust upon it by Nasser and a runaway Egyptian military, of Gaza and "the West Bank." [Curious, isn't it, that the topoynms "Judea" and "Samaria," though they have been in use all over the Western world since Roman times, and certainly were used by Jesus and the first Christians, suddenly dropped out, and the vague placename invented by the Jordanians in 1949, "the West Bank," accepted and "Judea" and "Samaria" mocked as "Biblical names used only by Israel's right-wing" -- yet at the same time "Gaza," a Biblical term for which the Egyptians did not find a replacement, continues to be unembarrassedly used by those in the West who, having no sense of history or logic, who would not be caught dead referring to "Judea" and "Samaria"].
Israel is not an "occupier" in the sense in which the Germans were occupiers of Occupied France, or of Occupied Paris, or after the war, the Four Powers were in control of Occupied Vienna or Occupied Berlin. Israel has a much deeper, longer claim to those areas -- which in the case of Gaza it may not wish to exercise for practical reasons -- a legal claim, based on the intent and terms of the Mandate for Palestine, which in turn is based on a historic and moral claim that the intelligent men who created the League of Nations, and the other intelligent men who staffed the Mandates Commission of that body, found convincing -- in the days before there was oil money from the Arabs sloshing about, and the rewriting of history, Middle Eastern history, had not yet given rise to that phrase "the Arab world" which Aramco invented, and which consigned to nothingness, both the large indigenous populations of Jews and Christians (Maronites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Orthodox, Copts, and others) who lived in the Middle East and North Africa (now called "the Arab world"), and whose lands were conquered, and they themselves subjugated, and slowly, over the pressure of the dhimmi system and outright intermittent massacre and forced conversion, the vast indigenous non-Muslim populations were reduced -- even as the Christians of Iraq and Gaza and the "West Bank" are being squeezed, harassed, murdered today.
Israel is not an occupier. The Arabs of Gaza were not under "occupation"; they were living on land that by right had been allocated to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, and yet the Israelis never treated them as the Jews had been treated by Muslim Arabs, never tried to evict them and, indeed, gave them, even under military rule, the best government they had had until then, and the best government they are likely ever to have had -- given the lords of misrule whom the Muslim Arab world throws up, and must, because of that blend of support for despotism, inshallah-fatalism, that inculcated habit of mental submission, and the rigid total belief-system that is, and forever will be Islam, and that alone explains the political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual failures of Muslim states and peoples.
Posted by: Hugh at June 24, 2007 9:26 AM
From article:...The political agenda of Condoleezza Rice and Ehud Olmert with President Mahmoud Abbas consists of trading kisses every two weeks...
Well, he got that right...It's about time a muslim spokesman got 'something' right...
at June 24, 2007 9:58 AM
"We will try to form an Islamic society."
Islamic society--In the West, the equivalent social ordering is referred to as a "concentration camp." The only permanent job opportunities are "prison camp guard." Except for the pitiless prison camp administrators, who eat all the food and deal out favors for sex, all the others in the camp are either dead, waiting for death, or dreaming of death.
Posted by: Stendec at June 24, 2007 10:09 AM
I got it. Sura 8, "The Spoils of War; Booty", Verse 40.
Posted by: darcy at June 24, 2007 10:49 AM
An Islamic society? Like the one in Iran?
Young men wearing T-shirts deemed too tight or haircuts seen as too Western have been paraded bleeding through Tehran’s streets by uniformed police officers who force them to suck on plastic jerrycans, a toilet item Iranians use to wash their bottoms. In case anyone misses the point, it is the official news agency Fars distributing the pictures of what it calls “riffraff.” Far bloodier photographs are circulating on blogs and on the Internet.
Palestinians, you asked for Hamas, you got it. Go through your wardrobe NOW.
Posted by: PMK at June 24, 2007 10:54 AM
Right Hugh.
The word "occupation" cuts both ways. Have the Muslims conquests from north Africa to Indonesia give back the lands "occupied" over past 14 centuries, and give back the people their natural lives, and we can talk about ending Israeli "occupation" of land gained in the '67 war. Until then, they should be told to shut up about "occupation". Their Koranic war manual gives them the "right to occupation" but nobody else? They are so childishly ignorant.
Push them for "reciprocity" in all matters, all the time hold their feet to the fire until they let go their "occupation", and then we can talk.
at June 24, 2007 10:55 AM
"Islam is against the corruption, weakening, and materialism which have destroyed societies in Europe and America. Families are broken (in the West); there are AIDS and drugs. We don't have such things here."
What we, the islamic societies do have are -
1. FGM
2. Hand chopping of petty thieves
3. Whippings for those who do not answer the azan (call to bang head on the ground while raising posterior skywards)
4. Stonings for women who venture out without a male relative
5. Hanging rape victims from cranes
6. We don't drink alcohol. That is immoral. We are stoned on hashish instead.
7. Absolute destruction of non-islamic objects, since they are jahiliya
8. Slave trading
9. No interest on loans. That is unislamic
10. An open market of small boys and girls. One can freely buy what one wants to, for whatever purpose we like
11. No broken families. The women who dare to oppose their husbands are given treatment #4
So you see, islamic societies are not corrupt, not weak, and certainly not materialistic.
at June 24, 2007 10:58 AM
In the case of the Jewish refugees who were indigenous to the Middle East, they have gotten on with their lives in Israel. However, Muslim dogma mandates that they must return to Dhimmi status, Muslims cannot accept reality that Jews are not second class citizens in Dar-al-Islam.
In any case, who are Arabs and Muslims generally to whine about being an endangered "indigenous people" when they have destroyed "indigenous cultures" and "indigenous people" in Persia, in India, in Turkey, etc. Everywhere they go they attempt to dominate "indigenous cultures", "indigenous peoples".
It is true that all people practice this kind of Imperialism (subduing and destroying indigenous cultures and peoples) using religion-ideology as the engine of imperialism. The Arabs, the Spaniards, the Aztecs (all people) do this. But for sheer unapologetic and self-righteous arrogance in their Imperialism, the Arabs beat all.
Posted by: Frank at June 24, 2007 11:07 AM
Today in the newspaper there was an article about what's going on in the Gaza strip -
Girls are complaining and whining that they can't walk in the street with their hair showing. Jeans is out of the question... can't hold hands... no more freedom…
No more internet café's…. no more internet at all….
Yep... they picked hamas... now they can have fun with it…
at June 24, 2007 11:11 AM
Yep... they picked hamas... now they can have fun with it…
Truer words...
Gazans are learning a bitter lesson:
people in a democracy get the government they deserve.
at June 24, 2007 11:21 AM
yeah - Christians can be Christians - of course, there won't be any left to practice thier religious freedom
Posted by: HOV Dummy at June 24, 2007 11:36 AM
Hamas' claims about the superior "morality" that comes from Islamic states sound like those made by Stalin and Hitler and Moa and Pol Pot. No drugs, no prostitution no sexually-transmitted diseases, and dogs don't chase cats, lions eat marshmallows, it's always sunny and sheep slit their own throats at Eid.
Delusional b.s. that always turns into a living hell.
Purges, "master races", "great leaps forward", killing fields.
All products of these "heaven on Earthers".
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 24, 2007 12:08 PM
I am a thirty six year registered Republican. I cannot understand why President Bush and Dr. Rice have this obsession with establishing a Palestinian terror state in Israel.
Aren't we now seeing the fruits of my party's drive to establish a twenty third Muslim-Arab state in the Middle East? Don't the Arabs have enough land? Why this obsession to further the jihad? Isn't the Bush administration and its puppets in Jerusalem reaping what they've sowed?
Posted by: monk at June 24, 2007 12:24 PM
Mahmoud Abbas was Yasir Arafat's right hand man. He is a founder of the Fatah terror organization and an alleged financier of Germany's Munich massacre.
Abbas did his doctoral thesis in the Soviet Union on Holocaust denial.
Yet Mr. Bush embraces this jihadist killer as a man of peace and so does Mr. Olmert. What gives? Didn't Bush say, "you are either with us or you are with the terrorists?" Who is Bush with?
Posted by: monk at June 24, 2007 12:37 PM
I agree, Monk. But let's not be gloomy. Instead, we should celebrate by throwing Rice - out.
Posted by: jewdog at June 24, 2007 12:39 PM
Monk wonders --
"I am a thirty six year registered Republican. I cannot understand why President Bush and Dr. Rice have this obsession with establishing a Palestinian terror state in Israel."Bush and Rice are Liberals. Their actions are explained by their Liberal ideology. Understand Liberalism and you will understand the greater part of the West's suicidal madness. Posted by: Zeno
at June 24, 2007 12:49 PM
"We will try to form an Islamic society."
And we keep taxing our Citizens to feed it. Hamas would be no more if the West hadn’t just sent it $40 million in food after the takeover of Gaza. We are the unindicted co-conspirators.
There’s a real simple answer to this problem. Do nothing.
Posted by: pez at June 24, 2007 12:50 PM
Mahmoud Zahar asserts that an Islamic society has no drugs, poverty, AIDS, materialism, weakening, or corruption.
Can it be coincidence that there is also none of the aforementioned in Hell?
Posted by: Xero G at June 24, 2007 1:00 PM
I will give Zahar and his Hamas pals credit for one thing: they are honest.
If only the rest of the world would actually listen.
Posted by: kamala at June 24, 2007 1:01 PM
"We will try to form an Islamic society."
Except that, in Islamic countries, "society" doen't mean the same thing as here in the west. "Islamic Gulag" might come closer to the correct translation?
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at June 24, 2007 1:32 PM
"No corruption in Islamic society"? I recommend Hugh Kennedy's WHEN BAGHDAD RULED THE MUSLIM WORLD. The Ummayad and Abbasid caliphs were, by-and-large, profligate degenerates whose courts were veritable Peyton Places.
Posted by: desertdawg29palms at June 24, 2007 2:26 PM
"No corruption in Islamic society"? I recommend Hugh Kennedy's WHEN BAGHDAD RULED THE MUSLIM WORLD. The Ummayad and Abbasid caliphs were, by-and-large, profligate degenerates whose courts were veritable Peyton Places.
Posted by: desertdawg29palms at June 24, 2007 2:27 PM
"As soon as we have a state, then everyone will have their freedom. Christians will remain Christians, parties could be secular or even Communist."
Yes, everyone will have their freedom, including Muslims. Muslims will be free to enforce their barbaric sharia law on everyone else.
People will be clamoring to get into that earthly paradise.
at June 24, 2007 2:28 PM
"As soon as we have a state, then everyone will have their freedom. Christians will remain Christians, parties could be secular or even Communist."
Yes, everyone will have their freedom, including Muslims. Muslims will be free to enforce their barbaric sharia law on everyone else.
People will be clamoring to get into that earthly paradise.
at June 24, 2007 2:30 PM
"As soon as we have a state, then everyone will have their freedom. Christians will remain Christians, parties could be secular or even Communist."
Yes, everyone will have their freedom, including Muslims, who will be free to empose their barbaric sharia law on everyone else.
They'll have to be tough on illegal immigration though, people will be clamoring to get into that earthly paradise.
Posted by: rational at June 24, 2007 2:34 PM
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