22 jan 2016
A medic looks at blood stain of a Palestinian man who was killed by Israeli undercover forces during a raid at Al-Ahly hospital in the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) on November 12, 2015.
British doctors have called for the removal of Israel from the World Medical Association (WMA) over claims of “medical torture” on Palestinians seeking treatment.
Some 71 UK doctors have started to pressure the WMA to revoke the membership of the Israel Medical Association, over claims that “our doctors perform medical torture on Palestinian patients,” said Ze'ev Feldman, the representative of the Israeli doctors, during a Knesset meeting held on the subject of boycotts against Israeli academic institutions, on Wednesday.
According to Press TV/Al Ray, if the British physicians succeed, the Tel Aviv regime will be banned from taking part in international medical conferences and publishing in journals.
The move follows similar measures launched by scholars around the world over the past few months. In December, over 200 South African scholars released a statement announcing their support of an academic boycott of Israel.
In November, the American Anthropological Association, the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world, approved a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
Moreover, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS, is gaining momentum in US college campuses and churches as well as in many places in Europe. The BDS movement seeks to end the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands.
British doctors have called for the removal of Israel from the World Medical Association (WMA) over claims of “medical torture” on Palestinians seeking treatment.
Some 71 UK doctors have started to pressure the WMA to revoke the membership of the Israel Medical Association, over claims that “our doctors perform medical torture on Palestinian patients,” said Ze'ev Feldman, the representative of the Israeli doctors, during a Knesset meeting held on the subject of boycotts against Israeli academic institutions, on Wednesday.
According to Press TV/Al Ray, if the British physicians succeed, the Tel Aviv regime will be banned from taking part in international medical conferences and publishing in journals.
The move follows similar measures launched by scholars around the world over the past few months. In December, over 200 South African scholars released a statement announcing their support of an academic boycott of Israel.
In November, the American Anthropological Association, the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world, approved a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
Moreover, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS, is gaining momentum in US college campuses and churches as well as in many places in Europe. The BDS movement seeks to end the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands.
18 jan 2016
Etzion Brigade Commander Colonel Roman Gofman, on Monday, issued an order to immediately remove all Arab workers from the Gush Etzion settlement, including from stores and businesses, The Jewish Press said.
The Israeli military claimed that the order came in order to halt Palestinian stabbing operatives.
On Monday morning, according to the PNN, an Israeli settler was stabbed and sustained moderate injuries, while the alleged attacker, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and critically wounded.
On Sunday as well, an unknown attacker has stabbed an Israeli woman in her house in the illegal settlement of Otneil, causing her immediate death. The military claims that the suspect is Palestinian.
Both stabbings took place in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
This is not the first time Israeli forces has carried out such orders against Palestinian workers.
Following the Douma arson attack that killed three of the Dawabsha family, the army banned some workers from entering specific Israeli-occupied areas to avoid “revenge”.
Since the start of October, some 162 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, under the pretext of stabbing operatives or alleged attempts. At least 30 of the victims were children and seven of them were women.
Some 27 settlers and soldiers have been injured is such attacks.
The uprising came after the attack on the Dawabsha family, on July 31, and the repetitive Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to the continuous apartheid policies against Palestinians which include movement restrictions, home demolitions, administrative detentions and more.
The Israeli military claimed that the order came in order to halt Palestinian stabbing operatives.
On Monday morning, according to the PNN, an Israeli settler was stabbed and sustained moderate injuries, while the alleged attacker, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and critically wounded.
On Sunday as well, an unknown attacker has stabbed an Israeli woman in her house in the illegal settlement of Otneil, causing her immediate death. The military claims that the suspect is Palestinian.
Both stabbings took place in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
This is not the first time Israeli forces has carried out such orders against Palestinian workers.
Following the Douma arson attack that killed three of the Dawabsha family, the army banned some workers from entering specific Israeli-occupied areas to avoid “revenge”.
Since the start of October, some 162 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, under the pretext of stabbing operatives or alleged attempts. At least 30 of the victims were children and seven of them were women.
Some 27 settlers and soldiers have been injured is such attacks.
The uprising came after the attack on the Dawabsha family, on July 31, and the repetitive Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to the continuous apartheid policies against Palestinians which include movement restrictions, home demolitions, administrative detentions and more.
15 jan 2016
Swedish Ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser.
The Israeli government has summoned Swedish ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser over Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström’s call for a probe into Israeli “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinians.
According to Israeli news outlet Ynet News, on Wednesday this week, Mr. Nesser was urgently summoned to the offices of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was rebuked by Deputy Director-General for European affairs Aviv Shir-On.
Shir-On expressed the Israeli government’s anger at what he called Wallström’s "twisted presentation of reality", and her "biased, even hostile treatment of Israel."
He added that, due to these comments, by the Swedish minister, Sweden should expect to be excluded from any role that pertains to Israeli-Palestinian relations.
According to the PNN, the real meaning of this statement was that the Israeli government will no longer allow Sweden to promote any projects in the occupied Palestinian territories.
On Tuesday Margot Wallström required examination of whether the Israeli killings of Palestinians, that have taken place in the recent months of unrest between Israelis and Palestinians, were extra-judicial and without trial.
“It is important to have thorough credible investigations into these deaths, in order to clarify and establish responsibility,” said Margot Wallström during a parliamentary debate, according to Swedish news agency TT.
Her comments were denounced, Tuesday, by former Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, as well as Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog and Chief negotiator Tzipi Livni.
Lieberman wrote on Twitter that:
“The only thing the foreign minister of Sweden hasn’t done is physically join the Palestinian terrorists and stab Jews.”
Also condemning the Swedish Minister’s allegations, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, on Wednesday, referred to Wallström’s remarks as “a mix of blindness and political stupidity,” calling for a halt to official Swedish visits to Israel.
This is the second time in less than two months that the Swedish ambassador has been summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry for rebuke.
The last time was in mid-November 2015, when Minister Wallström made statements that connected the ISIS attack in Paris to the frustration of the Palestinian people.
Relations between Sweden and Israel have worsened after Sweden in 2014 – shortly after Wallström came into office – recognized Palestine as an independent state, and blasted continuous Israeli aggression against Palestinians.
Confrontations between the Palestinian youth and the Israeli occupation forces have been running high all across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s imposition of restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem last year.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam.
The restrictions have enraged Palestinians, who are also angry at increasing violence by Israeli illegal settlers frequently storming the al-Aqsa Mosque.
More than 155 Palestinians, including 28 children and 7 women, were killed by Israeli forces or by illegal settlers since the beginning of October 2015.
The Israeli government has summoned Swedish ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser over Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström’s call for a probe into Israeli “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinians.
According to Israeli news outlet Ynet News, on Wednesday this week, Mr. Nesser was urgently summoned to the offices of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was rebuked by Deputy Director-General for European affairs Aviv Shir-On.
Shir-On expressed the Israeli government’s anger at what he called Wallström’s "twisted presentation of reality", and her "biased, even hostile treatment of Israel."
He added that, due to these comments, by the Swedish minister, Sweden should expect to be excluded from any role that pertains to Israeli-Palestinian relations.
According to the PNN, the real meaning of this statement was that the Israeli government will no longer allow Sweden to promote any projects in the occupied Palestinian territories.
On Tuesday Margot Wallström required examination of whether the Israeli killings of Palestinians, that have taken place in the recent months of unrest between Israelis and Palestinians, were extra-judicial and without trial.
“It is important to have thorough credible investigations into these deaths, in order to clarify and establish responsibility,” said Margot Wallström during a parliamentary debate, according to Swedish news agency TT.
Her comments were denounced, Tuesday, by former Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, as well as Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog and Chief negotiator Tzipi Livni.
Lieberman wrote on Twitter that:
“The only thing the foreign minister of Sweden hasn’t done is physically join the Palestinian terrorists and stab Jews.”
Also condemning the Swedish Minister’s allegations, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, on Wednesday, referred to Wallström’s remarks as “a mix of blindness and political stupidity,” calling for a halt to official Swedish visits to Israel.
This is the second time in less than two months that the Swedish ambassador has been summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry for rebuke.
The last time was in mid-November 2015, when Minister Wallström made statements that connected the ISIS attack in Paris to the frustration of the Palestinian people.
Relations between Sweden and Israel have worsened after Sweden in 2014 – shortly after Wallström came into office – recognized Palestine as an independent state, and blasted continuous Israeli aggression against Palestinians.
Confrontations between the Palestinian youth and the Israeli occupation forces have been running high all across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s imposition of restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem last year.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam.
The restrictions have enraged Palestinians, who are also angry at increasing violence by Israeli illegal settlers frequently storming the al-Aqsa Mosque.
More than 155 Palestinians, including 28 children and 7 women, were killed by Israeli forces or by illegal settlers since the beginning of October 2015.
Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said that Adhan (Islamic call to prayer) violates Israel’s interior laws as it causes “unbearable noise.”
During a meeting with the Likud bloc in the Knesset, Netanyahu claimed that “Arab towns must abide by the law of the land and fulfill their obligations to the state and society.”
This includes, Netanyahu continued, refraining from polygamy, which is practiced by Muslim-Arabs, stopping the noise caused by the Adhan, voiced five times a day by Muslim-Arab mosques, and halting construction without permit.
“I am not prepared to accept two States of Israel, a state of law for most of its citizens and a state within a state for some of them, in enclaves in which there is no law enforcement.”
There is no religious text that allows disturbing people by loudspeakers, according to his claims.
He also pointed to polygamy in Arab towns, claiming that “women’s rights organizations remain silent over this practice.”
During a meeting with the Likud bloc in the Knesset, Netanyahu claimed that “Arab towns must abide by the law of the land and fulfill their obligations to the state and society.”
This includes, Netanyahu continued, refraining from polygamy, which is practiced by Muslim-Arabs, stopping the noise caused by the Adhan, voiced five times a day by Muslim-Arab mosques, and halting construction without permit.
“I am not prepared to accept two States of Israel, a state of law for most of its citizens and a state within a state for some of them, in enclaves in which there is no law enforcement.”
There is no religious text that allows disturbing people by loudspeakers, according to his claims.
He also pointed to polygamy in Arab towns, claiming that “women’s rights organizations remain silent over this practice.”
13 jan 2016
By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth
A small scene from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unfolded last week on a Greek airport runway.
Moments before an Aegean Airlines flight was due to take off, three Israeli passengers took security into their own hands and demanded that two fellow passengers, from Israel’s Palestinian minority, be removed from the plane. By the end of a 90-minute stand-off, dozens more Israeli Jews had joined the protest, refusing to take their seats.
Like a parable illustrating Europe’s bottomless indulgence of Israel, Aegean staff caved in to the pressure and persuaded the two Palestinian men to disembark.
The lack of outcry from Israeli officials should be no surprise. Shortly before the Athens incident, Israel banned a Hebrew novel, Borderlife, from the schools curriculum because it features a romance between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian.
The education ministry said it feared the book would undermine Jewish pupils’ “national-ethnic identity” and encourage “miscegenation”.
As an Israeli columnist observed: “Discouraging ‘assimilation’ is an inseparable part of the Jewish state”. Strict separation operates in the key areas of life, from residence to schooling. As a result, marriages between Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population, are rare indeed.
It was therefore difficult not to see the paradox in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments following a shooting by Nashat Melhem that killed three Israelis in Tel Aviv on New Year’s Day.
Attacks of this kind by a Palestinian citizen on Israeli Jews are uncommon and it elicited instant condemnation from the Palestinian leadership. Nonetheless, Netanyahu seized the chance to label as “criminals” the country’s 1.6 million Palestinians.
In a sequel to his notorious election eve statement last year, when he warned that Palestinian voters threatened the result by “coming to the polls in droves”, Netanyahu pledged extra police funds to crack down on the “lawless” minority.
“I will not accept two states within Israel. Whoever wants to be Israeli must be Israeli all the way,” he said.
But in reality there have always been two classes of Israeli, by design.
The search for Melhem ended on Friday with police shooting him dead. In the meantime, his immediate family had been either arrested as accomplices or interrogated at length.
Presumably in an effort to pressure Melhem, the police told his mother they would demolish the family home unless he turned himself in – only Palestinians, not Jews, face house demolitions.
Earlier, when police suspected Melhem was hiding in Tel Aviv, the lodgings of dozens of Palestinian students were raided by officers with weapons drawn, though no search warrants.
At the weekend, Netanyahu conditioned a promised rise in the paltry budgets received by the Palestinian minority on an end to the “lawlessness” in their communities, as though the lack of effective policing of those communities was the responsibility of Palestinian citizens, not the government.
The week-long hysteria contrasted with the handling of another terrible crime, this one committed by Israeli Jews.
In late July, a gang of extremist settlers torched a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Duma. Three members of the Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old baby, burnt to death.
For weeks, in a familiar pattern following settler violence, the investigation made no progress. Then in September, defence minister Moshe Yaalon conceded that the culprits had been identified but the police would make no arrests to avoid exposing their informers.
Only after an international outcry, and Arab legislators threatened to petition the supreme court, did the wheels of law enforcement start to grind.
The attorney general approved the first-ever use of torture – a staple interrogation technique for Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories – on the Jewish suspects.
Prominent Israeli commentators and government ministers have agonised ever since about the abuses faced by these Jewish detainees.
Bezalel Smotrich, an MP, publicly rejected treating the Dawabshehs’ killers as terrorists. Asked in parliament to repudiate Smotrich’s remarks, Netanyahu stepped down from the podium in silence.
No one, of course, has suggested arresting the Jewish suspects’ parents – in one case a settlement rabbi – or demolishing their homes. Settlement seminaries have not been raided, or their students questioned at gun point.
Budgets for the settlements have been rising, with settlers receiving far more government money than Israelis inside Israel’s recognised borders. Their long record of violence and “lawlessness” has made no difference to their funding.
Legal experts now warn that the courts will likely free the main suspects in the Duma killings because their confessions were forced.
Meanwhile, the settler communities from which the men came are unrepentant. A recent wedding video showed guests celebrating the Dawabshehs’ deaths, including a reveller who repeatedly stabbed a photo of the toddler.
Although both settlers and Palestinian citizens face inadequate policing, they do so for very different reasons.
Depriving Palestinian citizens of law enforcement – except when repressing dissent – has left their communities weak and oppressed by crime and guns. For years Netanyahu has ignored pleas from Palestinian leaders for increased gun control – until now, when one of those weapons targeted Jews.
Settlers have also been policed lightly, so long as their violence was directed at Palestinians, whether in the occupied territories or Israel. More than a decade of settler violence – labelled “price-tag” attacks – has gone largely uninvestigated.
The truth is that most Israeli Jews have long supported two Israels: one for them and another for the Palestinian minority, with further, even more deprived ghettos for Palestinians under occupation.
The inhabitants of one Israel remain hostile towards, and abusive of, those in the other, who refuse to accept Jewish privilege as the natural order – just like the mob that insisted that their fellow citizens had no right to share a plane.
– Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
A small scene from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unfolded last week on a Greek airport runway.
Moments before an Aegean Airlines flight was due to take off, three Israeli passengers took security into their own hands and demanded that two fellow passengers, from Israel’s Palestinian minority, be removed from the plane. By the end of a 90-minute stand-off, dozens more Israeli Jews had joined the protest, refusing to take their seats.
Like a parable illustrating Europe’s bottomless indulgence of Israel, Aegean staff caved in to the pressure and persuaded the two Palestinian men to disembark.
The lack of outcry from Israeli officials should be no surprise. Shortly before the Athens incident, Israel banned a Hebrew novel, Borderlife, from the schools curriculum because it features a romance between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian.
The education ministry said it feared the book would undermine Jewish pupils’ “national-ethnic identity” and encourage “miscegenation”.
As an Israeli columnist observed: “Discouraging ‘assimilation’ is an inseparable part of the Jewish state”. Strict separation operates in the key areas of life, from residence to schooling. As a result, marriages between Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population, are rare indeed.
It was therefore difficult not to see the paradox in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments following a shooting by Nashat Melhem that killed three Israelis in Tel Aviv on New Year’s Day.
Attacks of this kind by a Palestinian citizen on Israeli Jews are uncommon and it elicited instant condemnation from the Palestinian leadership. Nonetheless, Netanyahu seized the chance to label as “criminals” the country’s 1.6 million Palestinians.
In a sequel to his notorious election eve statement last year, when he warned that Palestinian voters threatened the result by “coming to the polls in droves”, Netanyahu pledged extra police funds to crack down on the “lawless” minority.
“I will not accept two states within Israel. Whoever wants to be Israeli must be Israeli all the way,” he said.
But in reality there have always been two classes of Israeli, by design.
The search for Melhem ended on Friday with police shooting him dead. In the meantime, his immediate family had been either arrested as accomplices or interrogated at length.
Presumably in an effort to pressure Melhem, the police told his mother they would demolish the family home unless he turned himself in – only Palestinians, not Jews, face house demolitions.
Earlier, when police suspected Melhem was hiding in Tel Aviv, the lodgings of dozens of Palestinian students were raided by officers with weapons drawn, though no search warrants.
At the weekend, Netanyahu conditioned a promised rise in the paltry budgets received by the Palestinian minority on an end to the “lawlessness” in their communities, as though the lack of effective policing of those communities was the responsibility of Palestinian citizens, not the government.
The week-long hysteria contrasted with the handling of another terrible crime, this one committed by Israeli Jews.
In late July, a gang of extremist settlers torched a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Duma. Three members of the Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old baby, burnt to death.
For weeks, in a familiar pattern following settler violence, the investigation made no progress. Then in September, defence minister Moshe Yaalon conceded that the culprits had been identified but the police would make no arrests to avoid exposing their informers.
Only after an international outcry, and Arab legislators threatened to petition the supreme court, did the wheels of law enforcement start to grind.
The attorney general approved the first-ever use of torture – a staple interrogation technique for Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories – on the Jewish suspects.
Prominent Israeli commentators and government ministers have agonised ever since about the abuses faced by these Jewish detainees.
Bezalel Smotrich, an MP, publicly rejected treating the Dawabshehs’ killers as terrorists. Asked in parliament to repudiate Smotrich’s remarks, Netanyahu stepped down from the podium in silence.
No one, of course, has suggested arresting the Jewish suspects’ parents – in one case a settlement rabbi – or demolishing their homes. Settlement seminaries have not been raided, or their students questioned at gun point.
Budgets for the settlements have been rising, with settlers receiving far more government money than Israelis inside Israel’s recognised borders. Their long record of violence and “lawlessness” has made no difference to their funding.
Legal experts now warn that the courts will likely free the main suspects in the Duma killings because their confessions were forced.
Meanwhile, the settler communities from which the men came are unrepentant. A recent wedding video showed guests celebrating the Dawabshehs’ deaths, including a reveller who repeatedly stabbed a photo of the toddler.
Although both settlers and Palestinian citizens face inadequate policing, they do so for very different reasons.
Depriving Palestinian citizens of law enforcement – except when repressing dissent – has left their communities weak and oppressed by crime and guns. For years Netanyahu has ignored pleas from Palestinian leaders for increased gun control – until now, when one of those weapons targeted Jews.
Settlers have also been policed lightly, so long as their violence was directed at Palestinians, whether in the occupied territories or Israel. More than a decade of settler violence – labelled “price-tag” attacks – has gone largely uninvestigated.
The truth is that most Israeli Jews have long supported two Israels: one for them and another for the Palestinian minority, with further, even more deprived ghettos for Palestinians under occupation.
The inhabitants of one Israel remain hostile towards, and abusive of, those in the other, who refuse to accept Jewish privilege as the natural order – just like the mob that insisted that their fellow citizens had no right to share a plane.
– Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
12 jan 2016
No doubt Benjamin Netanyahu could barely contain his glee when he learned last month about the violent attack in San Bernardino, California. Even though the murderous husband and wife team seem to have been only “inspired” by ISIS over the internet, Netanyahu must have so happy that he sent out for more of his favorite pistachio ice cream. The tragic killings let him once again hammer home one of his major talking points: Hamas is ISIS.
Unfortunately for him, a brave journalist named Sarah Helm who regularly visits Gaza has just written a remarkable article in the New York Review of Books that destroys his view. “ISIS in Gaza” is a detailed report that should put the New York Times and much of the mainstream media to shame.
In fact, ISIS is starting to emerge in Gaza — but as a sworn enemy of Hamas. Sarah Helm explains,
Hamas members are seen as infidels by ISIS since they place the nationalist battle for a Palestinian state before the campaign for a caliphate.
She goes on to explain that ISIS sabotages Hamas efforts to negotiate cease-fires with Israel:
ISIS supporters inside Gaza have shown their opposition and tried to break the cease-fire by firing rockets into Israel, thereby angering Hamas and risking heavy Israeli retaliation.
Helm includes a fascinating interview with a Salafist Sheikh named Omar Hams, who uses theological arguments to oppose ISIS. He points out that ISIS is not some inevitable consequence of “Islam” but that it was in fact created by the West,
by the thousands of bombs dropped on the heads of Muslims, and by the rejection of democratically elected Muslim governments, such as in Egypt, and by the support for the state that is oppressing us here in Gaza, and that is Israel.
Sheikh Hams warns that ISIS is growing in Gaza, among disillusioned and hopeless youth. His own efforts to oppose it have apparently gotten him condemned as a collaborator by ISIS in Syria, which could jeopardize his physical safety.
Israeli intelligence services are not stupid, and they surely know that Hamas is not ISIS. But instead of trying to negotiate, Benjamin Netanyahu would rather continue his dishonest and dangerous rhetoric. He prefers to see Palestinians — and Israelis — continue to die so he can use the ongoing crisis to hang on to political power.
Unfortunately for him, a brave journalist named Sarah Helm who regularly visits Gaza has just written a remarkable article in the New York Review of Books that destroys his view. “ISIS in Gaza” is a detailed report that should put the New York Times and much of the mainstream media to shame.
In fact, ISIS is starting to emerge in Gaza — but as a sworn enemy of Hamas. Sarah Helm explains,
Hamas members are seen as infidels by ISIS since they place the nationalist battle for a Palestinian state before the campaign for a caliphate.
She goes on to explain that ISIS sabotages Hamas efforts to negotiate cease-fires with Israel:
ISIS supporters inside Gaza have shown their opposition and tried to break the cease-fire by firing rockets into Israel, thereby angering Hamas and risking heavy Israeli retaliation.
Helm includes a fascinating interview with a Salafist Sheikh named Omar Hams, who uses theological arguments to oppose ISIS. He points out that ISIS is not some inevitable consequence of “Islam” but that it was in fact created by the West,
by the thousands of bombs dropped on the heads of Muslims, and by the rejection of democratically elected Muslim governments, such as in Egypt, and by the support for the state that is oppressing us here in Gaza, and that is Israel.
Sheikh Hams warns that ISIS is growing in Gaza, among disillusioned and hopeless youth. His own efforts to oppose it have apparently gotten him condemned as a collaborator by ISIS in Syria, which could jeopardize his physical safety.
Israeli intelligence services are not stupid, and they surely know that Hamas is not ISIS. But instead of trying to negotiate, Benjamin Netanyahu would rather continue his dishonest and dangerous rhetoric. He prefers to see Palestinians — and Israelis — continue to die so he can use the ongoing crisis to hang on to political power.
