Mish’al forgetting important history
THE ARTICLE “We’re outraged at the helplessness of the West”, The Star, October 16, needs to be addressed.
The full page splash given to Hamas leader Khalid Mish’al read like a public relations exercise in support of the organisation. In response to questions put to Mish’al by Janet Smith, listen to what he had to say about his ArabIslamic environment: “We are Muslims but we belong to a part of the world which has all religions living together. There are Muslims, Christians. We have Arabs, non-Arabs.”
No mention of Jews. Can this statement be any clearer in summing up his views on the right of Jews to be in Israel.
He goes on to say: “We are part of the Muslim community, we are part of its culture, its civilisation, but without being extreme and without trying to alienate others. We accept the other.”
Give me a break. Accept the other? He doesn’t accept there being one Jew in the Holy Land and he’s made that abundantly clear.
On the question of their armed struggle, Smith puts forward to Mish’al: “It (the armed struggle) exists as part of warfare and on specific targets. Is this correct?” His answer: “Yes.” What he doesn’t elaborate on is that these specific targets are innocent men, women and children, fired on indiscriminately in their homes and schools by rockets from Gaza with the intention to kill and maim. He says: “We would prefer a peaceful route to achieve our goals, rather than the armed struggle.”
What a lie. It’s not what I keep hearing Hamas claim.
Listen to what Mish’al had to say on when the British ended their mandate on Pales- tine: “They surrendered our land, they gave our land to those guerrilla groups, the Jewish guerrilla groups who were in Palestine.”
Is he conveniently forgetting that a partition of Palestine was proposed at the time which was accepted by the Jews, but not by the Arabs who wanted the whole of Palestine for themselves, and went to war to achieve this? To think they could have had their state, but Jew-hatred prevented this.
On the question of the bias shown by the Western powers towards Israel, this is Mish’al’s take: “They are biased with Israel with all its aggression to the shrines and holy places, Islamic and Christian, in Jerusalem.” Can you believe this nonsense. Since 1948 Israel has shown sensitivity to all holy places, has allowed freedom of worship for all religions, and since 1967 has maintained the status quo on The Temple Mount.
In contrast, I’m sure Mish’al is aware of the utter destruction of most of the synagogues in Jerusalem’s Old City by the Arab armies during the 1948 war, and the desecration of the Jewish tombstones on the sacred Mount of Olives by the Jordanian forces. And recently, the burning of Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank. Talk about Israeli aggression.
I’m also left with a final question: Why in the entire interview did your journalist not bother to ask him about the Hamas Charter and the part that puts forward their objective that the State of Israel has no right to exist and that Hamas seeks the destruction of the Jewish State?
Benmore Gardens, Sandton