Doc's Talk: Hamas accused of turning its weapons on rivals in Gaza

Monday, February 02, 2009

Hamas accused of turning its weapons on rivals in Gaza

SHASHANK BENGALI AND DION NISSENBAUM
McClatchy Newspapers

Despite the destruction caused by Israel's 22-day assault, Hamas still runs the Gaza Strip. The militant Islamist group has put uniformed police back on the streets, deployed bulldozers to remove the rubble and distributed compensation to war victims. sinister side of Hamas also is re-emerging.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said it had credible reports that Hamas operatives killed six members of Fatah, Hamas' secular Palestinian rival, in Gaza in recent weeks. Another 35 were shot in the knees or beaten, the group said.

"It seems to be a kind of collective punishment because of their political beliefs," said Khalil Shaheen, a senior researcher at the Palestinian center, an independent advocacy group.

Many members of Hamas accuse the more moderate Fatah of collaborating with Israel, or at least sitting on the sidelines during the conflict in Gaza. It isn't just an inter-Palestinian feud: Many experts believe that unless the two factions mend their rift, there never will be a Palestinian state or peace with Israel.

One of the victims is Abdul Karim, who asked for his safety to be identified only by his first name. The 30-year-old, who used to help run Fatah youth camps, said Hamas operatives beat him with sticks and a length of hose for two hours in a basement next to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Abdul Karim said he was approaching the hospital to visit friends who were injured in the Israeli offensive when five men in civilian clothes grabbed him. At one point one of the men pointed a gun at him and cocked a bullet into the chamber, he said.

Last fall, Abdul Karim said, Hamas security officials repeatedly interrogated him and accused him of working with the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank, which is dominated by Fatah. This time, however, the men didn't ask questions. They were just out to punish him, he said.

"I started to ask them, 'Why are you beating me? Why am I here?' " he said. "But every time I started to ask a question they just said, 'Don't ask, don't say anything, shut your mouth.' And (they) beat me more and more with each question."

Now he walks with a crutch. His right hand is in a cast, and deep, red bruises are spread across his shoulders and legs.

"People are seeing the other face of Hamas," he said, seated gingerly in the living room of a relative's house in a southern Gaza village, where he and his pregnant wife fled following the attack.

Hamas and Fatah have long been rivals, but their estrangement has intensified since June 2007, when Hamas expelled Fatah from Gaza in a violent coup after winning democratic elections the year before. This left the party that rose to prominence under Yasser Arafat controlling only the other Palestinian mini-state, the West Bank, between Israel and Jordan. There, Fatah security forces suppressed anti-Israeli protests and reportedly have jailed dozens of Hamas members.

Hamas officials in Gaza dismissed allegations of systematic abuse as Fatah propaganda, and suggested that some of the killings were the result of family feuds or spats among small-time criminals.

They acknowledged perhaps "one or two cases" where Hamas forces took action against people suspected of being Israeli collaborators - a favorite sobriquet for Fatah members.

"I do believe that when it comes to taking action against anybody there is some proof that this guy is guilty of something," said Ahmed Yousef, the deputy foreign minister in Hamas's Gaza government.

"This is a time of war so you have to be careful."

Ihab al-Ghusain, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said that Hamas supporters were angered to see some people celebrating when Israeli forces killed Iman Siam, the head of Hamas' rocket-launching unit, in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Jabaliya on Jan. 6.

"Fatah people were giving out sweets. It made young people angry, so there was some conflict between them," Ghusain said. "But there is no policy like that. Taking the law into their own hands is not allowed."

When Hamas opponents organized a rally in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis on the second day of the war, a Hamas man opened fire and killed two people. The families of the victims were offered $100,000 as compensation, but instead they demanded that the shooter be executed. Hamas did so, Yousef said.

Shaheen, the human rights researcher, said that security forces in Gaza and the West Bank are cracking down on their rivals.

"It's action-and-reaction," he said. "This is part of the internal conflict. It is interfering with the national dialogue and we condemn it."

(EDITORS: END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Even Gazans who support Hamas' resistance against Israel voiced outrage at the targeting of opponents.

"The most painful thing is that Hamas attacked its own people," said a woman who asked to be identified as Umm Ibrahim. "I like that Hamas fights Israel. I like that they are clean. But not that they turn on their own people."

Umm Ibrahim said that her son-in-law, Abu Diana, a security officer for the Palestinian Authority before it was ousted from Gaza, was targeted by Hamas Fatah forces, who accused him of holding a Fatah meeting at his home. On Jan. 2, as Abu Diana was driving home on an empty road, men wearing masks shined flashlights into his face and opened fire on his car.

His wife found him and took him to Shifa Hospital, where they were questioned by Hamas security. A doctor warned him not to stay there, so his wife went to their car and told hospital security that she had something to drop off. She pulled into the front entrance, where Abu Diana climbed into the car and they drove away.

They haven't returned to their home since.

In a darkened apartment in Gaza City, Abu Diana, 37, lay on a couch under a blanket with a long cast covering most of his right leg. He had a bandage around his left leg and showed scabs where he had been shot through the left arm. He and his relatives were angry that Hamas had turned its weapons on fellow Palestinians during the war.

"It used half its forces to deal with the internal situation rather than to fight Israel," he said.
© 2009 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk