Free Republic

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahar issued a demand Sunday evening that Israel remove the stripes from its flag. "Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag", Zahar said. "The stripes are symbols of occupation – they signify Israel's borders, stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile." The Hamas official's comments followed Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's assessment at the weekly Cabinet meeting that the newly elected terror group was "acting responsibly so far." Zahar also told CNN's Late Edition that the world should not be asking Hamas to recognize Israel, but rather demanding that the Jewish...

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar has suggested that US President-elect Donald Trump is secretly a Jew. In an interview with Al-Jazeera earlier this month, translated by MEMRI, Zahar said that “Trump loves the Jews, and not only because he likes the Jewish religion. I do not rule out the possibility that he is a Jew.” “He loves the Jewish religion,” Al-Zahhar continued, “and the most important thing in the Jewish religion is Jewish money.” Zahar then went on an antisemitic rant, saying that Harry Truman was bought by $2 million in “Jewish Money” and therefore recognized the State of Israel....

Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar, declared the constant cycle of violence in Jerusalem an “intifada” on Saturday night, making rumors of a so-called “silent intifada” official despite declarations from the Israeli security establishment that statements to that effect are exaggerated. “Escalating the resistance in the city is the solution to Israeli aggression,” Zahar told Hamas news agency Al-Risala. Zahar also slammed the Hamas-Palestinian Authority (PA) “unity government”’s security coordination with Israel. …

Every day in the Middle East, terrible things happen. The lies and distortions of truth help ensure things don’t get better. Every day in the Middle East, terrible things happen. The worst are the acts of violence and oppression. The second worst are the lies and distortions of truth that help ensure things don’t get better. Every day in the West, the lies are echoed and amplified, and new ones invented. This not only helps ensure things don’t get better in the Middle East, it guarantees they will get worse in the West. There is an ancient Navaho proverb that...

Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar on Friday said he hoped that Barack Obama's presidential election victory would open a new page in relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world. However, Zahar said he does not expect immediate change in U.S policy toward Hamas. The Bush administration is boycotting the Palestinian Islamist group, along with most of the international community.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who has been seeking to raise money for the financially strapped government, returned to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday with a suitcase full of cash, Palestinians officials said. An official said Zahar was believed to be carrying up to $20 million. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. An official statement was expected later Wednesday. The official said Zahar had declared the money at the border, which is controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard and monitored by European observers. It...

LONDON: Mahmoud Zahar, the joint leader of Hamas which has been voted to power in last week's Palestinian election, has ruled out recognising Israel. "We are not going to recognize Israel," Zahar said in an interview published in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday, putting paid to suggestions that Hamas may alter its 1988 charter calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. But he added: "We can reach out to them with a long-term hudna (truce)." In the interview given in Gaza city, Zahar also called on the world to recognise Hamas. "The outside world must not fear us," he...

Friday, September 24, 2004 Shabbat Shalom and Gmar Hatima Tov by Caitlyn M. Martin Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and the most solemn day in the Jewish year, starts at sundown this evening. (As of this writing it has already started in Israel.) For Jews around the world it is a time of fasting, prayer, and repentance. In Israel everything shuts down for Yom Kippur, from television and radio stations, to public transportation, to all non-emergency government services. Most Israeli Jews, even those who normally consider themselves secular, will be in a synagogue for Kol Nidre...

JERUSALEM: Israeli military officials on Monday said they believe Mahmoud Zahar, a surgeon and prominent Hamas hard-liner, is the new leader of the Islamic militant group in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has refused to reveal the name of the man chosen to replace Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the Hamas leader killed in an airstrike on April 17. In Gaza violence on Monday, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the back by Israeli army fire and died, Palestinian medical workers said. The boy was in a group of youths who had climbed some sand dunes to watch the soldiers. Military officials said...

WITHIN hours of the killing of Abdel Aziz Rantissi by the Israelis, the Palestinian militant group Hamas chose a grey-bearded and softly spoken physician to become its third leader in just under four bloody weeks in the Gaza Strip. The appointment of Dr Mahmoud Zahar, 53, was kept secret as he joined tens of thousands of Palestinians at the funeral of Dr Rantissi. Dr Zahar is married with children. He was for years best known as a working doctor and the personal physician of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’s spiritual leader, who was killed in an Israeli missile attack last month....

Mar. 10, 2003 Israel increases security for ministers in light of Hamas threats By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Israel has increased security for Cabinet ministers after the Islamic militant group Hamas threatened to target Israeli leaders, an official said Monday. Hamas made the threat in response to Israel's killing of a Hamas founder, Ibrahim Makadmeh, in a missile attack in Gaza over the weekend. The helicopter strike came after Hamas killed 15 Israelis and three Americans in a bus bombing in Israel and a shooting attack on a Jewish West Bank settlement last week. Since the outbreak of fighting in September...

Feb. 6, 2003 Hamas leader: Islamic group is ready to take over from Arafat By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Hamas is prepared to assume leadership of the Palestinian people, a senior Hamas official said Thursday, a rare expression of the goal of the violent Islamic movement, while five Palestinians, another Arab and two soldiers were killed in clashes. Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the Hamas political wing, told The Associated Press that his group is "absolutely" prepared to lead the Palestinian people now. He said Hamas has the infrastructure to take over leadership "politically, financially (and) socially." Hamas has been responsible...