Posted on 02/28/2006 8:53:51 AM PST by areafiftyone
JERUSALEM It was summer 1988. We were sitting in a cramped office, more like a closet, just off a darkish corridor in the Islamic University in Gaza City, a block-like building with green hallways and cement floors, the nerve center of Hamas.
The other people in the room, sipping coffee, trading cigarettes and jokes, were two of the founders of Hamas Mahmoud Zahar, a physician, and Atef al-Adwan, a professor at the Islamic University.
Outside on the dusty, steaming streets and rutted paths of poverty-stricken, overcrowded Gaza, Palestinians were battling Israeli soldiers with rocks, bottles and firebombs. The first intifada, or uprising, had erupted in the winter, leading to the emergence of Hamas, an Arabic anagram for Islamic Resistance Movement.
Hamas was a whole new concept for fighting Israel. The PLO, Israels prototype enemy for decades, paled in comparison.
A quick read through the Hamas charter revealed deep hatred for Israel, Jews and Zionism from an Islamic religious point of view that made the PLOs political hatred look like the mere barking of a junkyard dog.
The charter starts with a quote from the Quran about the Jews: They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them. That is because they disbelieve the revelations of Allah, and slew the Prophets wrongfully. That is because they were rebellious and transgress.
Hamas charter goes downhill from there, stooping even to mentioning the notorious 1905 anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and blaming Jews for all that is wrong with the world in the classic mold of centuries of Jew-haters.
They (the Jews) also used the money to establish clandestine organizations which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests. Such organizations are: the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Bnai Brith and the like. All of them are destructive spying organizations, the charter said. There was no war that broke out anywhere without their fingerprints on it.
And there I was in a small room in a Hamas stronghold with two of the groups main movers. Did they know that besides being an American radio reporter, I was an Israeli and a Jew?
Probably. Through the years, as I walked down streets or open-air markets in the West Bank and Gaza, microphone in hand, a tape recorder hanging prominently across my belly, someone would yell out in Hebrew, Hey, Moses, whats happening? to see if I would react.
But it didnt matter. To Adwan and Zahar, anti-Semitism was institutional, not personal. I was in no danger.
They chuckled with me about the strange way Egyptians speak English, adding extra syllables to words. Exact-ee-ly, Zahar chortled. Exact-ee-ly.
And then they explained to me why there must be no Jewish state in the Mideast. The Quran said the whole area is Islamic. Period.
Jews (like me) who came from somewhere else must go home. Jews who lived in Palestine before the state of Israel was founded in 1948 could remain. They would be protected and cared for as an honored minority with limited rights, of course, since only Islam can rule here.
The Jews werent the problem, they said. It was Israel and Zionism. Everything was fine until Israel and Zionism came along and stole their land. Before that, they said, ignoring the massacres of Jews in 1929 and 1936, everyone got along. It could be that way again if only Israel would cease to exist.
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinct Palestinian movement which owes its loyalty to Allah, derives from Islam its way of life and strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, the charter said, referring to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Only under the shadow of Islam could the members of all regions coexist in safety and security for their lives, properties and rights.
In kindergartens and schools Hamas set up in Gaza, children were taught to see the world through the blinders of the operative verses of the Quran: Israelis were non-believers and usurpers who must be fought and killed. Jihad was the only way.
The message was readily absorbed among the pitifully poor people in the dusty territory.
Gaza became a fertile field for growing suicide bombers among the hopeless youth who faced a stateless existence trapped in a seaside hellhole with no future.
Now, nearly two decades later, Hamas has surprised itself and won a parliamentary election, putting itself in the position of official power in the West Bank and Gaza. And now the world is wondering do they really mean all that?
The charter is not an old, dusty document written by an idealistic founding generation to be memorized in classrooms but forgotten in practice, like the Declaration of Independence. Most of the people who wrote it are still around (some have been assassinated by Israel). The charter guides them because it sums up their core beliefs.
But they are patient. They acknowledge that there is a powerful state of Israel, and they are relatively weak. They offer Israel a long-term cease-fire if it will just get out of all of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians would establish a state there and bide their time until the inevitable victory of their brand of Islam:
The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!
The deepest-held beliefs of Hamas dictate Israels destruction. Its just a matter of timing.
Will they try to send waves of suicide bombers into Israel when they take office, while theyre cleaning up the corruption-plagued Palestinian government or society? Or will they tackle removal of Israel only when theyre firmly in control in a few months or years?
When. Not if.
Comedians, those Islamists.
And then they explained to me why there must be no Jewish state in the Mideast. The Quran said the whole area is Islamic. Period.
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
make that islamic darkness. RR speaking to us from beyond.
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The charter, for those interested.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
And Hashem, the Holy One of Israel says Israel will remain. Looks like "allah, " and the living G-d are butting heads.
Reminds me of the competition between the prophets of Baal and Elijah in I Kings 18. Can't wait to see this one come to a head.
"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Holocaust Chronicle ~
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."
The Nature Of Bruce ~
Hamas will never win because our God is real, and their muslim god is an idol.
It's not just Hamas. It's all of islam. Hamas just has the balls to say what they want. Islam tries to fly under the radar. But their intentions and plans are the same.
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