The Guild 8-23-2003 Hamas Calls Bush 'Islam's Biggest Enemy'

WashPost ^ | 8-23-2003 | The Associated Press

[BigWaveBetty]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday called President Bush an enemy of Islam because the U.S. government froze the assets of Hamas leaders in response to a suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem.

Speaking to Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV, Abdel Aziz Rantisi called the action "a theft of Muslim money by the Americans" and said the frozen money doesn't belong to Hamas.

"Hamas does not have any money in the U.S., Europe or even in the Arab states. President Bush has become Islam's biggest enemy," Rantisi said in the interview.

On Friday, the United States froze the assets of six Hamas leaders, including Rantisi, an aide to Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the group's spiritual leader. The United States also froze the assets of five European-based organizations that it said raise money for the radical Palestinian group.

[BigWaveBetty]

Thank you for being the enemy of Islam (radicals) President Bush.

[BigWaveBetty]

If you want to send LBGA a note please get it to me this week, I'd like to send out the album and books this week. Thanks.

[BigWaveBetty]

Still no report on the Canadian terrorists eh, except for the one you found mountaineer. Very Strange.

T - I'm waiting for the day algore comes out of the closet.

[BigWaveBetty]

Got the pages you made for LBGA's album! Thanks so much, they're really neat. Very very cute!

You are a super woman, taking care of the children and a new baby and still have time to make someone else happy.

10-Q 10-Q 10-Q!!

[lodwick]

Abdel Aziz Rantisi called the action "a theft of Muslim money by the Americans" and said the frozen money doesn't belong to Hamas.


"Hamas does not have any money in the U.S., Europe or even in the Arab states. President Bush has become Islam's biggest enemy," Rantisi said in the interview.

Huh?

Rantisi - don't wrap the towel so tightly around your head.

[BigWaveBetty]

Huh?

:-) Radical Islam and the truth are like oil and water.

Iraqis Assist Soldiers with disabled vehicle near Fallujah

Very good story!

[lodwick]

A most excellent story - thanks for linking it.

Send us your rain, please. It's getting toasty here...

[mountaineer]

A few reports in Canadian newspapers about the arrests, and a story in the WashPost (which was what the Buffalo paper picked up and published, and I posted on the previous thread). Other than that, it isn't considered much of a story, I guess. I wonder how many lives were saved by virtue of those arrests.

[mountaineer]

No doubt Hamas is pleased to read this in the NY Times:

Europe Reacts Coolly to Bush's Call to Freeze Charities' Assets
By CRAIG S. SMITH


ARIS, Aug. 23 — Europe has reacted tepidly to President Bush's call to freeze the assets of four European charities said by the administration to be sending cash to Palestinian militants. That sets the stage for another trans-Atlantic rift over Middle East policy.

Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for Austria's Interior Ministry, said the country's counterterrorism agency had already investigated one of the groups, the Palestinian Association in Austria, and had found no evidence of wrongdoing. "Under Austrian law there were no grounds for punitive action," Mr. Gollia told the Austria Press Agency late on Friday after Mr. Bush had spoken.

Both French and European Union officials said any decision on freezing assets would probably be made jointly by European foreign ministers over the next few weeks and would require a thorough review of the charities' activities.

"The European ministers and experts will look at the question and there will be a 15-country debate," a French diplomat said here today, adding that only then would there be a decision. The ministers are scheduled to meet in Italy on the first weekend in September.

Mr. Bush demanded Friday that the assets of five charities be frozen along with those of six top officials of Hamas, the Palestinian organization whose military wing has claimed responsibility for the deadly suicide attack on a Jerusalem bus on Tuesday.

Four of those organizations are based in Europe: the French-based Committee for Welfare and Relief for Palestine; the Palestinian Relief Association in Switzerland; the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund, or Interpal, with headquarters in Britain; and the Palestinian Association in Austria. The fifth charity, the Sanabil Association for Relief and Development, is based in Lebanon.

Mr. Bush's demand highlights a stark difference between how the United States and Europe, with its large and growing Muslim population, have dealt with Palestinian activists. Europe has resisted Bush administration requests that it blacklist Hamas's political wing, which many European leaders contend is a legitimate organization.

The administration's call for cooperation by "all nations supportive of peace in the Middle East" again casts Europe as a potential impediment to American foreign policy, as it was in the months ahead of the Iraq war. United States pressure on Europe to comply also risks reopening rifts within the 15-member European Union that yawned wide during the Iraq debate when some countries supported Washington and others did not.

The European Union has labeled Hamas's military wing a terrorist organization. But the question of freezing assets of the group's political wing, let alone those of charities that many Europeans consider vital to providing services to the Palestinian people, remains divisive.

While individual European countries are free to bar organizations unilaterally, they have agreed to operate jointly. In part that is meant to improve efficiency — with a common banking system, any freeze on assets in one European country could easily be sidestepped by transferring those assets to another — but there is also the wish to maintain a unified Middle East policy. "Clearly it's an issue of foreign policy where the European Union wants to stay together," said Joost Korte, deputy chief of cabinet for Christopher Patten, the European commissioner for external affairs.

The charities themselves reacted angrily today, saying that they had no links to Hamas and that their funds were not diverted from humanitarian ends.

Ibrahim Hewitt, the chairman of Interpal, said his organization was investigated for similar allegations in 1996 by Britain's Charity Commission, a regulatory body, and given a clean bill of health. Since then, he said, it has maintained close contacts with the commission and the local police. "I would hope that the government would go along with what their own civil servants advise," he said.

A spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said today that any action against Interpal would be up to the Charity Commission.

Mr. Hewitt said he did not know how his group got on the United States blacklist. A recent Federal Bureau of Investigation report linked Interpal with an American-based charity whose assets the Bush administration froze in 2001 for supporting Hamas's military wing. But Mr. Hewitt said the only link was a $66,000 wire transfer from the United States charity to his group for providing meat from slaughtered sheep for religious feasts in the Middle East.

He said he had no knowledge of Hamas activists who the F.B.I. has charged are members of some charities to which his organization sends money. "We don't deal with individuals," he said. "We operate through charities over there that are registered with the Palestinian and Israeli authorities and we have a very bureaucratic paper trail to ensure that we know how the money is being spent."

He called on the United States to provide evidence that the named organizations were helping finance militant activities. "If we've done wrong, tell us and we'll correct it," he said.

Youcef Benderbal, spokesman for the Committee for Welfare and Relief for Palestine, said his organization was "shocked and revolted" to be associated with Hamas.

"I am amazed," he said, "that the president of a country such as the United States would mix things up like he did, and take it out against a humanitarian organization."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/international/europe/24HAMA.html?ex=1062302400&en=12f3b0841c3c6eb7&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[lodwick]

I am amazed that Christian countries let these people come into our lands.

Why?

[Timeout]

Perhaps President Bush should send each European leader this photograph, taken immediately following Tuesday's bus bombing for which Hamas took "credit":

Breaks my heart every time I see it. Do any of you know whether this toddler survived?

[lodwick]

Excellent post.

Cheers guys.

[lodwick]

Quotes & Toasts of the Day -

"I read somewhere that 77% of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 percent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves." - Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead)

"I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a Great White or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot." - Axel Rose (Guns'n'Roses)

[Timeout]

Most of the mediaCrats seem not to have noticed the irony in trumpeting the removal of the 10 commandments from a Montgomery courthouse while simultaneously celebrating MLK's "I have a Dream" speech whose very foundation came from the Old Testament.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I believe that baby died. When I first saw the unedited video I couldn't catch my breath. Those murderous bastards.

[Timeout]

Wolf Blitzer just asked Howard Dean to tell us who his foreign affairs advisors are. Other than "Gen. Hoar", he declined to name them. Interesting.

[mountaineer]

Howie was afraid it would be too obvious if he said, "Fidel Castro" or "Alec Baldwin."

[Timeout]

LOL!

Oh, wait! Were you kidding?

[mountaineer]

Clinton's India Connection (a who's who).

[Iowa Granny]

Reporting in. Back in a bit.