Turkish Muslim Commentator: Hamas Are Terrorists

[JStone]

Burak Bekdil, Hurryet Daily News The Arab-Israeli exchange rate (part II) - Hurriyet Daily News

Anyone who is mystified by [Turkish] Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s great quotes, like me, should remember well this one from earlier this year: “Calling [Hamas] terrorists would be disrespectful to the will of the Palestinian people.” I asked, at that time, “Which man of peace, unless from Jihad, would ally with an organization whose charter declares members to be Muslims who ‘fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors?"

I know Messrs. Erdoğan and [Turkish Foreign Minister] Davutoğlu are not convinced that Hamas is a terrorist organization even though Hamas’ charter vows to annihilate a legitimate state – Israel. I know they did not link Hamas with terrorism when their darling Khaled Mashaal described the 10,000 rockets Hamas sent to Israeli territory as “modest, homemade rockets,” one of which in 2004 killed 4-year-old Afik Zahavi

I know Messrs. Erdoğan and Davutoğlu simply shrugged off the U.N.-sponsored Goldstone report, which stated: “[Hamas’s activities] constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population. These actions would constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity ... The rocket and mortar attacks launched by armed Palestinian groups have caused terror.”

Forget all of that. Not even the Hamas statement over the killing of Osama bin Laden tainted Mr. Erdoğan’s love for Hamas: “Hamas condemns the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior, Osama bin Laden” (whose skilful operatives had once bombed Istanbul, killing mostly Muslim Turks). Last year, in this column, I wrote: “When combined into one compact idea, the picture is telling us that ... The Turkish government views as a great friend, an entity [Hamas], which views the boss of Istanbul’s bombers as a holy warrior.” Bizarre? Maybe.

How does Mr. Erdoğan really justify that Hamas is not a terrorist entity but a political party like his own when it trades a foreign soldier for terror convicts?

 

[Truthseeker420]

Hamas are Freedon fighters.

 

[JStone]

Hamas are Freedon fighters.

http://asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=22115

Hamas police proceeded to close a water park in Gaza due to the presence of "degrading and unethical gender mixing" according to the justification reported in the news. Subsequent information about this incident revealed that the citizens who were removed from the water park, following the Hamas decisions, had just sat down to break their fast [during the holy month of Ramadan], and those evicted from this water park included a charity organization that looked after orphans.

The media in our region only briefly reported this news, mainly because we do not understand how breaking one's fast during Ramadan could be considered "degrading and unethical." What exactly is the criteria for this?

In any case, this news did not gain a lot of media attention in the Arab world. In fact, those media outlets that covered this story included it on the inside pages of their newspapers or as part of a news round-up, and that is when it was reported at all.

Yet the Gaza Water Park closure is not an isolated incident, in fact similar events occur routinely [in the Gaza Strip]. Only a few weeks ago, gunmen burned down a summer camp for children organized by UNRWA because young boys and girls would be mixing together, and there was a possibility of them swimming together.

Indeed, the siege imposed upon Gaza, and the continuing strain that this has had on its people, has not prevented Hamas from overseeing ‘public morals’. For example, Hamas ensures that women's clothing stores respect the principle of modesty with regards to the mannequins on display at the shop's entrances, with the shop's who fail to do so being subject to punishments. The hardships suffered by the people of Gaza has not prevented Hamas from ensuring that women do not smoke shisha in public places, or that men do not work in female clothing shops.

And who could forget how the Ministry of Education in Gaza banned the book ‘Speak, Bird, Speak Again’ which was a collection of Palestinian folk tales, saying that this contained "shameless sexual expressions?"

What is happening in Gaza is certainly far from an accident, or a miscalculation on the part of Hamas, and in fact this represents the essence of the Hamas movement and its true religious viewpoint. Hamas took over the Gaza Strip through force of arms, and it is impervious to being held to account for its actions. One cannot question its daily practices, or its oppression of the people of Gaza as Hamas practices tyranny in the name of resistance, and hides behind slogans.

Hamas does not tire from changing the features of the Palestinian cause, and obscuring its humanitarian aspects by continuing to obscure and eradicate Palestine's secular history and reality. Those who are united in support for Gaza and its people do not extend their solidarity towards the subsequent injustices inflicted upon the people of Gaza by Hamas, who have seized control of their lives. The means of resisting the Israeli blockade [of Gaza] are well known, and are sometimes productive, however as for the darkness that is being imposed upon the lives of the people of Gaza by Hamas, this cannot be dealt with whilst people are saying that they are in solidarity with the people of Palestine. What was inspiring with regards the Freedom Flotilla that came to challenge the Israeli blockade was that this also challenged the blockade that is being imposed by Hamas upon the lives of the people of Gaza.

When we read the daily reports about what is happening in Gaza under the shadow of Hamas, we cannot help but recall the final verse of the last poem written about Gaza by [Palestinian poet] Mahmoud Darwish before his death:

“If we can’t find someone to defeat us again, we defeat ourselves with our own hands”

 

[JStone]

Former Gazan Nonie Darwish, Human Rights Activist, Founder, Arabs For Israel... An Arab-Made Misery - WSJ.com

International donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid for Gaza earlier this month. It has been very painful for me to witness over the past few years the deteriorating humanitarian situation in that narrow strip where I lived as a child in the 1950s.

It is Hamas, an Islamist terror organization supported by Iran, which is using and abusing Palestinians... While Hamas leaders hid in the well-stocked bunkers and tunnels they prepared before they provoked Israel into attacking them, Palestinian civilians were exposed and caught in the deadly crossfire between Hamas and Israeli soldiers.

Both Israel and Egypt are fearful of terrorist infiltration from Gaza -- all the more so since Hamas took over -- and have always maintained tight controls over their borders with Gaza. The Palestinians continue to endure hardships because Gaza continues to serve as the launching pad for terror attacks against Israeli citizens. Those attacks come in the form of Hamas missiles that indiscriminately target Israeli kindergartens, homes and businesses.

And Hamas continued these attacks more than two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in the hope that this step would begin the process of building a Palestinian state, eventually leading to a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was no "cycle of violence" then, no justification for anything other than peace and prosperity. But instead, Hamas chose Islamic jihad. Gazans' and Israelis' hopes have been met with misery for Palestinians and missiles for Israelis.

Hamas, an Iran proxy, has become a danger not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians as well as to neighboring Arab states, who fear the spread of radical Islam could destabilize their countries.

Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them. If they really loved their Palestinian brethren, they'd pressure Hamas to stop firing missiles at Israel. In the longer term, the Arab world must end the Palestinians' refugee status and thereby their desire to harm Israel. It's time for the 22 Arab countries to open their borders and absorb the Palestinians of Gaza who wish to start a new life. It is time for the Arab world to truly help the Palestinians, not use them.