Posted on 03/05/2006 7:12:38 PM PST by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS 3:00 p.m.
CAIRO, Egypt – Hamas officials shrugged off the support offered by al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, saying Sunday the Palestinian militant group has a different ideology than the terror network and won election through a moderate approach to Islam.
In a video aired Saturday by Al-Jazeera, Ayman al-Zawahri called for jihad, or holy war, to reclaim Palestinian lands and implied al-Qaeda's support for Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel despite international pressure since the militant Islamic group swept parliamentary elections in January.
A Hamas official in Gaza, speaking on condition of anonymity because the movement did not want to formally respond to al-Zawahri's support, said: “Hamas believes that Islam is completely different to the ideology of Mr. al-Zawahri.”
“Our battle is against the Israeli occupation and our only concern is to restore our rights and serve our people. We have no links with any group or element outside Palestine,” the official said.
Hamas is setting up a new Palestinian Cabinet after defeating Fatah, which had ruled Palestinian politics for four decades. Hamas does not accept the presence of a Jewish state in the Mideast and has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel. The United States and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
Al-Zawahri complained in the videotape that the previous Palestinian leaderships “sold Palestine” through peace agreements in Oslo and Madrid and the U.S.-backed road map peace plan. “This is a dangerous deal which should be dropped immediately,” he said.
“No one has the right, whether a Palestinian or not, to abandon a grain of soil from Palestine which was a Muslim land that was occupied by infidels. It is the duty of every Muslim to work on getting it back,” he said.
In place of negotiations, he said, was “the path of prophets and messengers, which is ... jihad, until the soil will be liberated and the Islamic states rise again.”
He agreed with Hamas' refusal to accept Israel or renounce its violent ideology and rejected President Bush's State of the Union message that the group would lose funding if it did not reform.
“To this regard I have to warn the Muslim brothers in Palestine. ... We know for sure that Palestine will not be liberated by the elections, but by jihad,” al-Zawahri said. “I would like to tell my brothers in Palestine that reaching power is needed to implement Islamic rule.”
But in what was seen by some as criticism of Hamas for running in elections, he said: “Entering with those who have sold Palestine, the legislative council, and recognizing their selling, stands against Islam.”
Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, told Al-Jazeera his group was elected through its moderate approach to Islam, which did not compare to al-Qaeda's exclusionary tactics.
“We are not a movement that labels people infidels or that abandons them. We are a movement that lives the realities of the people and that uses wisdom ... to turn them to Islam,” he said.
“When Hamas entered parliament, it did so under the slogan: Islam is the solution. When the people decided to vote for it, they believed that Islam can solve their economic, social and political problems as well their military battles against the occupation.”
He said Hamas has proved through its good behavior and its resistance to the occupation “that it is fit to be the leader of this street.”
Al-Zawahri also criticized the West for the insulting drawings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and said Muslims were obliged to “confront the Crusaders' campaign against Islam with hands, tongues, facts and spears.”
Al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, has issued several video and audiotapes in the past year. His last video came on Jan. 31, in which he threatened a new attack against the United States.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahri are believed to be in hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghan border.
Hmmm.....interesting. I think the Hamas statement has more to do with the Shia-Sunni split in Islam than any deeper ideological differences over the treatment of infidels. Hamas is primarily a Shia outfit while Al Quaida is a Wahabbi Sunni outfit.
Their aims are the same though. BTW, there is no ideology called "moderate" Islam.
And taking money from Iran
Hamas just doesn't want to lose their funding from Iran.
In a related story, John Muhammed declines help from Charlie Manson, citing he's a moderate sniper.
"Islam is the solution. When the people decided to vote for it, they believed that Islam can solve their economic, social and political problems as well their military battles against the occupation.”
Islam produces poverty, ignorance, and death. It has never solved a single problem.
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1589104/posts
Sounds like they need to get their act together on this infidel thing.
These people are delusional to the point of comedy. They should do stand-up.
or cordinating your attacks with Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah.
I think "moderate" to them means using a really sharp machete instead of a dull kitchen knife when they cut someone's head off.
The majority of countries, however, consider Hamas suicide bombers to be merely missionaries for the religion of peace. < /sarc >
Moderate? They still want to destroy Israel. A moderate
Moooslim is one taking his dirt nap.
“When Hamas entered parliament, it did so under the slogan: Islam is the solution. When the people decided to vote for it, they believed that Islam can solve their economic, social and political problems as well their military battles against the occupation.”
The only moderate Muslim is one six feet under.
All the better reason to starve them of funding to show the goat lovers "islam is not the solution" instead of supporting the swines jihad with global welfare so they need not face the necessity to evolve away from mohamMADan ideology.
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