Hamas, Like Fatah, Wants All of 'Palestine' By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
January 27, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - A Hamas leader said late Thursday that the terrorist group's victory in the Palestinian legislative elections would "complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine."
Ismail Haniyeh, addressing a victory press conference, did not elaborate, but his pledge echoes the covenant adopted by Hamas at its founding in 1988.
"The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim," reads article 15 of the Hamas Charter. "In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of jihad be raised."
Elsewhere, the document says Hamas will work "to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine."
Scholars say that in certain traditions of Islam, Muslims believe they have an obligation to win back any territory once held by Islam and subsequently lost to the faith.
"Any territory that comes under Islamic rule cannot be de-Islamized," according to Prof. Moshe Sharon of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Hebrew University.
"Even if at one time or another, the [non-Muslim] enemy takes over the territory that was under Islamic rule, it is considered to be perpetually Islamic," he wrote in a 2003 article.
All of present-day Israel and the Palestinian self-rule areas were under Muslim domination for most of the period between the Arab conquest in the seventh century and World War I, when the British defeated the Ottoman Turks in 1917.
"No believing Muslim, in the Hamas conception, can be reconciled to Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East," Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz wrote on the paper's online edition Thursday.
"To deny that, for Hamas, is blasphemy."
The objective of liberating "all of Palestine" is not exclusive to Hamas, however.
Haniyeh's vow is also in line with the Palestine Liberation Organization's 1974 program to liberate territory in phases until it controls "the whole of the soil" of the Palestinian "homeland."
Yasser Arafat, in both his capacity as P.L.O./Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman, frequently referred to the goal of raising the flag of Palestine over the walls of Jerusalem.
P.A. figures have also spoken of the territory they are fighting for including Israel's other major cities, including the coastal population centers of Haifa and Jaffa, today a suburb of Tel Aviv.
"We have announced a number of times that from a religious point of view Palestine from the sea to the river is Islamic," the P.A.-appointed mufti Sheikh Ikrama Sabri said on Palestinian TV in January 2001.
"From the river to the sea" in the regional context refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. All of the State of Israel lies between the two.
Since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, and especially since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000 and the establishment of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, Israeli security officials say the lines between Hamas and Fatah have increasingly blurred, particularly with regard to terrorism.
Critics of the Palestinian factions say they share not only tactics, but also an ultimate objective.
"The one positive outcome of Hamas' victory is that this reality of the joint-Hamas/Fatah goal of Israel's destruction can no longer be ignored and must be confronted," Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein said in reaction to Thursday's election outcome.
"Hopefully now, Israel, the U.S., and Europe will implement policies dealing with the newly realized reality - that the Palestinian Arabs' goal is not simply a Palestinian Arab state, is not peace with Israel, but is clearly and only Israel's destruction."
Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy is one of a number of analysts who sees a link between Hamas' victory and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer.
"The promise that more attacks on Israel will compel her to relinquish still more land and political authority to those who perpetrate them is the explicit platform on which Hamas has come to power," he wrote Thursday.
"As a result, we must now anticipate that Hamas will seek to deliver on its promise. The territory under its control will become a safe-haven for terror against both Israel and the West more generally, including the United States."
Let me add to this: Yes you detect hate there.. I have spend more than 10 years with these people. They hate you, trust me.. They are about themselves, they will cheat you, steal from you, and kill you in a heart beat.. I have even been in physical conformations with them, they love to fight, not very good at it, but they love to fight.
I have many Muslim friends some still I am in contact with some. We have shared many special occasions together, but I don't trust them. If you studied their religion, they are radical, and will kill you.. If you don't believe me,, just wait, they are coming.
Im doing some reloading- waiting for the United nations/aclu lawyers& mexicoto come& try taking back Texas,Az, New mexico,Cal etc
For those fatah/hamas they want more land -they should get it from there arab nabors who have plenty - i would have gave them nothing to begin with- let along more.
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Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.-- Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18)
Things ain't what they used to be and probably never was. ~Will Rogers
Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.
"Shouldn't someone tag Mr. Kennedy's 'bold new imaginative program' with its proper age?" "Under the tousled boyish haircut it is still old Karl Marx—first launched a century ago.
There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother to us all. R.Reagan-1960
I wonder how long and whatit will take for the "PC" (politically correct) police to take the word "terrorist" group from any discription of the newly electedgoverment?
Perhaps a simple hollow de-nouncment of acts of terror will be enough?
Thanks
Mr-Pirk
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A proud owner of a Flying Vee. Bestowed by the fine Gentleman VC1111 himself.
Palestine Wants More Land
