The New Statesman's interview with Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, was one of the most significant interviews with the leading figure in a movement that has been demonised and excommunicated by most of the western world and its media.
That was Anas Altikriti who goes one in the, but of course, Guardian:
Arguably, the most important assertion made in the interview, conducted by Ken Livingstone, is that in which Meshal clearly stated that the Palestinian struggle was anything but a conflict between Muslims and the Jewish people. He insisted that the Palestinians were fighting against the occupier who had dispossessed them of their homes and lands, regardless of religion, creed or race. He also went on to confirm that the concept of coexistence was largely present in the Palestinian psyche, and that genocide, as suffered by Jews in Europe (and which he described as "horrible and criminal") was alien not only to the Palestinians but to the inhabitants of the region as a whole.
His statement that Jews, Muslims and Christians had for centuries lived side by side – implying there was nothing intrinsic to prevent this happening again in the future – is crucial...
This unequivocal stand is one that ought to be welcomed by Jewish communities around the world...Meshal was sending a clear message of assurance that the Palestinian struggle was political rather than religious and about real political grievances and not against the Jewish people per se...
His comments on democracy were equally enlightening. He explained that since the Palestinian people included the entire political, religious and ideological spectrums, Hamas would abide by the outcome of their vote, respect the rights of different faiths and political views, and refrain from imposing Islamic law against the wishes of the people.
Hamas.
Meshal.
Ken Livingstone
???
Oh, really, now.
The interview, by the way, is here.
How ridiculous?
Let's pick just one extract from the interview, the first question and answer:
Ken Livingstone: Could you explain a little about your childhood and the experiences that shaped your development into the person you are today?
Khaled Meshal: I was born in the West Bank village of Silwad near Ramallah in 1956. In my early age, I learned from my father how he was part of the Palestinian revolution against the British mandate in Palestine in the Thirties and how he fought, alongside other Palestinians using primitive weapons, against the well-equipped and trained Zionist gangs attacking Palestinian villages in 1948.
I lived in Silwad for 11 years until the 1967 war, when I was forced with my family, like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, to leave home and settle in Jordan. That was a shocking experience I will never forget.
a) since there was no Jewish presence near Silwad in the 1930s (Silwad, near where I live, is 35 kilometers north of Jerusalem), he had to have been a member of the Arab marauding gangs.
b) Gangs? Yes, gangs who were simply looking for Jews (and occasionally, Brits) to kill. Try this:
The year 1936, when Wingate arrived, marked the beginning of the Arab rebellion against both British rule and Jewish settlement in Palestine. The British responded by sending army units after the rebels, with some success. Jewish communities were not always so lucky. As we have seen, British military officers were frequently biased towards the Arab side. When confrontations erupted into hostilities between the Arabs and the Jews, the British frequently confiscated the arms and arrested the Jews - and more often than not, the Arabs got off the hook. Even if attacked and loss of life was incurred, if Jews fought back their weapons were frequently taken from them.
Part of the problem was that the Jews had a static defense in their settlements while the roaming Arab gangs were mobile, and the Arab perpetrators of attacks frequently could not be found...Wingate was no less disappointed with the British Army's response to Arab rebellion and terror than with the Jewish concept of static defense. The Arabs roamed in from Syria or Jordan, hid in the hills and caves, and used hit-and-run tactics in order to escape to safety. The British Army by contrast, used the roads to chase the perpetrators. Even the British Air Force, when called in, wasn't effective in seeking out the Arab gangs when the Arabs already had a well-planned out escape route or hiding place. The Arabs knew the land well, and the night was theirs alone.
You think that's biased?
Try this from: "
at the section - PUBLIC SECURITY.
10. During the year covered by this Report, public security in Palestine was seriously disturbed by a compaign of murder, intimidation, and sabotage conducted by Arab law breakers, which on a few occasions provoked Jewish reprisals.
This general description of public security in Palestine during 1937 calls for amplification. The terrorist campaign took the form of isolated murder and attempted murder; of sporadic cases of armed attacks on military, police and civilian road transport; on Jewish settlements and on both Arab and Jewish private property; while in the autumn there was a revival of lawlessness and violence by armed Arab bands which persisted until the end of the year. Outwardly the life of the country did not appear to be unduly affected, but towards the end of the year economic conditions seriously deteriorated.
11. During the first five months lawlessness was generally confined to the Northern District and to the Jerusalem Municipal area.
12. In the Northern District in January an attempt was made on the life of the Mayor of Haifa and a notable of the town was killed by Arab terrorists. In February there was an increase of intimidation with violence of Arabs by Arabs, an Arab police constable being shot dead near Haifa on the 22nd of the month. At the end of the month there was a serious case of cattle theft from a Jewish settlement near Tiberias. There were also attacks on individual Jews, including the brutal murders of a young Jewish settler near Beisan and a Jewish doctor in Beisan. During March the Safad, Nazareth and Tiberias sub-districts continued to be unsettled and on the 13th and 14th of the month five Jews were murdered by armed Arabs, three of them near their settlement in the hills above the southern end of Lake Tiberias. The other two were shepherds who were brutally killed near Nazareth by a band of marauders who stole four hundred sheep and goats belonging to the Jewish settlement of Kfar Hahoresh.
In the first fortnight of April there was a recrudescence of murder in the urban and rural sub-districts of Haifa resulting in the deaths by shooting of the Arab Vice-Mayor of Tiberias and an Arab Assistant Superintendent of Police, whose Arab orderly was assassinated at the same time.
13. In the Jerusalem Municipal Area the month of March was marked by two serious outbreaks. On the 6th a Jew was wounded in the Old City and this attack was followed later in the day by the murder of one Arab and the wounding of another near a Jewish suburb of the town. On the 17th of the month a bomb, thrown in the Jaffa road, wounded 19 Jews (including two policemen) and one British soldier, and some hours later three further bombing outrages occurred, four bombs being thrown into Arab cafés. These three later incidents resulted in the death of one Arab and the injuring of ten. Both on the 6th and the 17th March a curfew was at once imposed after the incidents. During the rest of the month and the whole of April the Jerusalem Municipal area remained comparatively undisturbed; but in the middle of May a Jew was wounded and an Arab killed.
Elsewhere in the country sporadic shooting at Jewish settlements and occasional attacks on Arab property had persisted. In January and February there were further incidents of armed highway robbery and hold-ups, and on two occasions in January the Police engaged parties of bandits on the Nablus-Jenin road and inflicted casualties; but after February there was an almost complete cessation for four months of highway brigandage, which, as stated in the Annual Report for 1936 (Introductory Chapter, paragraph 40 (d)), had been frequent during the last three months of 1936.
14. On the 13th June an unsuccessful attempt was made in Jerusalem by three armed Arabs on the life of Mr. R. G. B. Spicer, C.M.G., M.C., the Inspector-General of Police. His British chauffeur was wounded.
On the 30th June and on the 3rd July respectively attacks were made on a member of the Nashashibi family at Jaffa and on the Mayor of Bethlehem in his house.
15. On the 1st July a new Police Division for the Northern Frontier was formed consisting of one British Deputy District Superintendent of Police, two Palestinian inspectors, 83 British and 128 Palestinian constables. It was entrusted with the control of the Palestine Syrian frontier from Ras an Naqura in the west to Samakh in the east in co-operation with the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force.
On the 14th July for the purposes of administrative convenience the Northern District, which comprised the Phoenicia, Galilee and Samaria divisions, was reorganized as two Districts: the Haifa sub-districts (urban and rural) and the Samaria division remained under the District Commissioner, Haifa, and a new Galilee District comprising the Galilee Division and the Acre sub-district was created with Headquarters at Nazareth. The two Districts are called "Haifa and Samaria" and "Galilee and Acre" respectively.
16. The last 10 days of July witnessed a revival of lawlessness. Three Arabs were murdered between the 19th and the 30th of the month in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, and between the 23rd and the 30th there were four night attacks by small parties of armed Arabs on road transport, one raid on a Public Works Department camp, and one armed burglary of an Arab house in the Jerusalem district.
During the first three weeks of August the campaign of lawlessness was intensified, seven Arabs (including a police constable, a police tracker and the Mukhtar of Bir Zeit) being murdered and seven wounded (including a police constable and a police clerk). There was also an increase in isolated attacks on Arab property and in shooting on Jewish settlements, and there was one serious case of theft of livestock from a Jewish settlement near Tiberias.
17. During the four weeks from the 29th August to the 26th September on which date Mr. L. Y. Andrews, O.B.E., the acting District Commissioner, Galilee District, and British Police Constable McEwen were murdered at Nazareth, there occurred a further succession of murderous attacks in the four administrative districts of the country.
In Jaffa there were two bomb-throwing incidents in which two Arabs and three Jews (one a woman) were wounded, and in Tel Aviv an Arab was shot and wounded.
In the Jerusalem district four attacks were made on omnibuses (three belonging to Arab and one to Jewish companies) in which one Arab woman was killed, another was wounded and one Jew was killed. There was also one unsuccessful bomb-throwing incident and four cases of murder by shooting, three Arabs being killed and one Jew.
In the Haifa rural area, at Karkur and near Hedera, two Jews and five Arabs were murdered between the 30th August and the 1st September. On the 4th and the 12th September a notable of Haifa and a notable of Jenin, respectively, were murdered by terrorists. Two Arabs were shot and killed on the 31st August and the 19th September in and near Haifa. On the 8th September Arab bandits held up a number of cars between Haifa and Nazareth. All the passengers were robbed and two Jews travelling in one car were removed from the scene of the hold-up. One was shot dead and the other wounded.
In the Galilee District two Arabs were wounded and one Jew killed and another wounded. Late on the afternoon of Sunday the 26th September Mr. L. Y. Andrews, O.B.E., the acting District Commissioner, Galilee District, and his police escort, British Constable McEwen, were shot dead by unknown assassins in the narrow roadway leading to the Anglican Church in Nazareth where they were about to attend the Evening Service. The Assistant District Commissioner who was with Mr. Andrews was also shot at but escaped injury.
18. Reference is made in the following section of this Report (Policy) to the action taken by the Palestine Government on the 1st October as a result of the persistence of the terrorist campaign of murder and intimidation which has been described in the preceding paragraphs of this section.
19. From the 26th September to the 13th October there was a comparative lull, but on the 14th October there was a sudden revival of incidents of murder and violence and an increase of sabotage and attempted sabotage. This state of insecurity persisted until the end of the year in the Jerusalem, Galilee and Haifa and Samaria Districts.
In the Southern District during the second fortnight of October an armed Arab band raided Lydda Airport burning down the temporary buildings housing the Customs and Passport offices and the wireless installations; and another armed party made an unsuccessful attack on a crowded passenger train on the Lydda-Haifa line near Ras el Ain.
Two attempts were made by bombing to damage the railway track near Gaza, and a Jewish boy was shot and killed in Rehovot. During the remainder of the year, however, the Southern District was quiet.
In the Jerusalem district between the 14th and the 31st October, three Arabs were killed and four were wounded. The Jewish casualties during the same period of three killed and six-teen wounded included the murder of Mr. Avinoam Yellin, M.B.E., of the Department of Education, who was shot near his office on the 21st October. He died two days later. An Armenian and an Egyptian were shot and killed in the neighbourhood of the Jaffa Road; and during an attack by an armed Arab band on the Hebron Road in the early morning of the 15th October, two British police constables were killed. As a result of these incidents curfew was imposed on the Jerusalem Municipal area for a total period of eight days between the 15th and the 31st of the month.
The incidents which produced these casualties in the Jerusalem district included the bombing of two Jewish buses and an armed Arab attack on a potash convoy from the Dead Sea; while on the 18th October a large Arab gang raided a police post south of Hebron and stole five rifles and a quantity of ammunition...
and it goes on.
b) "forced" from his home? Maybe his father or he already were involved in terror and felt that it would be best to run away? Hundreds of thousands stayed. Why did he flee?
And on that bit about
Meshal was sending a clear message of assurance that the Palestinian struggle was political rather than religious and...Hamas would...respect the rights of different faiths and political views, and refrain from imposing Islamic law...well, Salam Fayyad, a 'moderate' from Fatah, holds these views:
So, what do you think the more extreme, radical, obscurantist Meshal thinks, really?Fayad’s view of justice is well articulated in this piece when he states that “All Palestinians are equal before the law”.
Anyone who is not a Palestinian is therefore not equal.
Fayad declares that the Palestinian State will be an Islamic state and “Promote awareness and understanding of the Islamic religion and culture and disseminate the concept of tolerance in the religion through developing and implementing programs of Shari’a education as derived from the science of the Holy Qur’an and Prophet’s heritage”.
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1 comment:
wow, notice the use of "Samaria" in that Mandate Report. Not West Bank. Gee.
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