Voices of Palestine: Ahmad Bahr

Posted by Joseph Klein Bio ↓ on Oct 24th, 2011

Editor’s note: Below is the first profile of Frontpage’s new series, “Voices of Palestine,” which will illuminate the core beliefs, in their own words, of leading figures in the Palestinian death cult.

Ahmad Bahr is the deputy speaker of Hamas’s Palestinian Legislative Council. He has praised the signing of a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party as a great triumph for the Palestinian cause against the “black agendas and malicious objectives” of Israel and the United States.

It turns out that the Hamas deputy speaker has some “malicious objectives” of his own.

The senior Hamas leader recently said on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV that, since Allah had transformed Jews into apes and pigs as punishment for their disobedience, “Allah imposed the nation of Muhammad, and the Jihad-waging Palestinian people, upon those siblings of apes and pigs, until we sweep them out of our land and our holy places.”

Back in April 2007, during a Friday sermon at a packed mosque broadcast on an official Palestinian Authority-controlled television station, Bahr described Jews as “the cancerous lump… in the heart of the Arab nation.” He predicted that “America and Israel will be annihilated, Allah willing.”

“Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies,” Bahr prayed. “Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies…. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.”

Just one week earlier on Sudanese TV, Bahr called Muslims “the masters of the world.” Jews and Americans, he said, are “cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah.”

Bahr praised his Sudanese hosts who have the blood of their own people on their hands: “Our Jihad-fighting Palestinian people salutes its brother, Sudan.”

Last year, in a speech aired on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV, Ahmad Bahr flatly condemned the very idea of negotiations, which he said “are aimed at uprooting Islam and the resistance here in Palestine, in Gaza.” He favors instead the path of martyrdom, holding out the promise of 2.5 million virgins awaiting the martyrs in a single palace in the Garden of Eden. That’s a big jump from the usual promise of 72 virgins, but apparently Bahr fervently believes that waging jihad to destroy Israel and kill Jews merits a tremendous bonus in the next life.

Bahr did not limit himself to discussing the heavenly reward of virgins for martyrdom. “When a man is having sex with his wife, he should be praying for a son who would wage Jihad for the sake of Allah,” Bahr said on Al-Aqsa TV while expounding on the lesson of a hadith (the sayings or deeds of Muhammad). “If this is the culture of the nation today, who will be able to stop it?… I say to you: As long as we continue on this path, nobody on Earth will be able to confront the resistance, or to confront the mujahideen, those who worship Allah and seek martyrdom.”

Hamas’s deputy speaker also had some threatening words to say regarding the negotiations over the release of Gilad Shalit​ in exchange for 1000+ Palestinian prisoners. Ahmad Bahr called for Palestinian militants to seize more Israeli soldiers as leverage for future exchanges of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. “The popular, political, media and diplomatic efforts inside and outside can never be an alternative to the military efforts to rescue our prisoners from the oppressive occupation’s prisons,” Bahr declared in a press statement. “We should be tireless of making every possible effort to seize Zionist soldiers and exchange them through prisoners swap deals.”

Ahmad Bahr is a representative of the Hamas senior leadership, which is poised to join Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party in a “unity” Palestinian government. His hateful incitement to violence is broadcast on television to Palestinians, who lap up his every word and are poised to act out his threats. Nevertheless, Richard Falk​, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, just delivered to the UN General Assembly his latest one-sided report attacking Israel as the obstacle to peace.

At Falk’s October 20th press briefing at UN headquarters, I asked him to comment both on Bahr’s televised call for “Jihad-waging Palestinian people” to “sweep” out the “siblings of apes and pigs” and his call for Hamas to kidnap more Israeli soldiers. After first saying that a critical look at Hamas’s abuses and responsibility for violence was not part of his “mandate,” Falk descended into the swamp of moral relativism. Without citing any specific evidence, he claimed that the same “irresponsible kind of talk” occurred in Israel’s Knesset “that makes very wild accusations.”

Ahmad Bahr, the deputy speaker of Hamas’s Palestinian Legislative Council and possible leader in a future “unity” government, is an all too typical voice of Palestinian hatred and incitement to violence against Jews, broadcast on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV and via other propaganda media. Falk and his ilk at the United Nations are Bahr’s enablers.

About Joseph Klein

Muslim students at Catholic University of America complain that Christian symbols make them uncomfortable when they pray in empty classrooms

Voices of Palestine: Mahmoud al-Zahar

Posted by Frank Crimi Bio ↓ on Oct 26th, 2011

Editor’s note: Below is the second profile of Frontpage’s new series, “Voices of Palestine,” which will illuminate the core beliefs, in their own words, of leading figures in the Palestinian death cult. To view the profile of Ahmad Bahr, click here.

When Hamas released Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit​ after five years in captivity in exchange for over 1,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, it was met with considerable opposition from those who believed it would only encourage more kidnappings and terrorism. Almost immediately, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar fully confirmed this worry, saying in a newspaper interview, “The lessons we’ve learned by kidnapping soldiers leads us to continue the kidnappings. We still have 7,000 prisoners in (Israeli) jails, and they also need to be released.” But, unlike Israel, al-Zahar is not interested in these prisoner exchanges for the purpose of liberating innocent Palestinians. Rather, he is determined to amass as many foot soldiers as possible in order to obliterated Israel and drive its Jewish population into the sea.

To achieve this goal, al-Zahar’s Hamas has for decades employed suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets. While al-Zahar currently resides in the “political-wing” of Hamas, prior to that he cut his teeth planning these attacks in Hamas’s “armed-wing,” the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

When al-Zahar first ascended to his ministerial post in 2006, he outlined Hamas’s foreign policy agenda in a series of public broadcasts. In one broadcast, al-Zahar said Hamas “would not change a single word in its covenant,” which calls for the destruction of Israel and Jewish genocide. He added, “Israel is not a legitimate entity, and no amount of pressure can force us to recognize its right to exist.” Then, for those who may still not have understood the message, al-Zahar further assured them, “By God, we will not leave one Jew in Palestine. We will fight them with all the strength we have. This is our land, not the Jews.”

In a 2010 television broadcast, al-Zahar intoned, “We have liberated Gaza, but have we recognized Israel? Have we given up our lands occupied in 1948? We demand the liberation of the West Bank, and the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital – but without recognizing [Israel]. This is the key – without recognizing the Israeli enemy on a single inch of land…I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognize the Israeli enemy.”

Of course, even if Israel were to cede all “disputed territories,” as they’re called, that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy al-Zahar and his Hamas compatriots. Al-Zahar made that point clear as early as 2005 when he said, “Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don’t recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold onto one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims.”

Al-Zahar has been equally clear as to his plans for the Jews after Palestine is “liberated”: “We are no weaker or less honorable than the peoples that expelled and annihilated the Jews. The day we expel them is drawing near…We have learned the lesson – there is no place for you among us, and you have no future among the nations of the world. You are headed to annihilation.”

It should be noted that al-Zahar’s mission to annihilate the Jews comes with several preconditions. As he explained in 2006, “Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day.”

Only a problem for Israel and the Jews? Not according to al-Zahar. Achieving Allah’s directive in “Palestine” is only the beginning. In 2004 al-Zahar said:

We are part of Allah’s promise that Islam will enter Palestine and every home in the world, with a revelation of the power of Allah the Omnipotent, and a revelation of the inferiority of the infidels. Hamas is leading this plan in Gaza, the West Bank, and the 1948 territories, and the Muslim Brotherhood​ is leading it everywhere else. This is part of Allah’s predestination.

Al-Zahar’s Islamist vision was on display later that same year when he spoke at the funeral of the first female Hamas suicide bomber, promising, “She is not going to be the last because the march of resistance will continue until the Islamic flag is raised, not only over the minarets of Jerusalem, but over the whole universe.”

Al-Zahar’s admiration for death and destruction is not confined to Palestinian suicide bombers. He also praises his Islamist brethren in Afghanistan, the American-killing Taliban:

The Taliban are 1,000 times more honorable than the American occupation and its collaborators…Everyone must stop blaming the Taliban for things that in fact characterize the people of the West, who seek to turn the international community into a swamp of corruption and destruction, and to spread abomination and disease in the name of absolute freedom.

Perhaps al-Zahar’s admiration for the Taliban arises from that terror group’s frequent use of suicide bombers, many of whom are women and children forced into the act. During the al-Aqsa Intifada from 2000-2004, Hamas and its allies launched 138 suicide attacks against Israelis, killing 319 Israeli soldiers and 745 civilians, and wounding 2,430 soldiers and 5,032 civilians. Sixty-nine of the suicide attacks were carried out by children under the age of 18.

One might be misled into thinking that al-Zahar’s recent call for Mahmoud Abbas​, leader of Fatah (Hamas’s rival), to abandon his unilateral UN statehood bid was an indication that his views are softening. But, in actuality, al-Zahar opposes the move because he does not want a Palestinian state side by side Israel. He is only interested in one Judenrein Palestinian state. As he once said, “I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it. I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine.”

No amount of prisoner exchanges or concessions by the Israelis will allow that dream of al-Zahar’s to die. He’s made himself perfectly clear on the subject. If only the world would take his words seriously.

About Frank Crimi

Tampa: Use of Islamic law OK in civil case

Yes, it's a civil case. Still, it opens the door farther to the use of a legal system that contains coercive and oppressive elements that infringe upon the rights of women and non-Muslims, and restrict the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. An update on this story. "Use of Islamic law OK in civil case, judge rules," by José Patiño Girona for the Tampa Tribune, October 25:

A state appeals court has ruled that a Hillsborough County Circuit judge can consider Islamic law to decide a civil case between a mosque and its former trustees.

The decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland to decline the appeal of the Islamic Education Center of Tampa sends the case back to Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Richard A. Nielsen. Nielsen's decision in March to allow the case to proceed under "ecclesiastical Islamic law" drew national attention when the ruling was criticized by conservative bloggers.

The case has its roots in 2002, when the mosque ousted four of its founding members; those founding members later sued the mosque. One of the main issues of dispute was who would be responsible for how to spend $2.5 million Florida's Turnpike Enterprise had paid the mosque for 3.4 acres needed to widen Veterans Expressway.

When he made his March ruling, Nielsen said courts have ruled "that ecclesiastical law controls certain relations between members of a religious organization, whether a church, synagogue, temple or mosque."

The uproar over the ruling went overboard, said Lee Segal, a Clearwater attorney representing the ousted trustees. He said the ruling follows established legal precedent and does not mean Nielsen is allowing Islamic law to trump U.S. law.

"When the parties agree (before the trial that) they are bound to Islamic law, they can be bound to Islamic law," Segal said. "As long as what you are agreeing to doesn't violate the constitution of the United States, you can apply any type of law."

Though the issue of Islamic law has garnered attention, the legal fight over the lawsuit is complicated, with much of it revolving around the arbitration process.

On Monday, Paul Thanasides, the attorney for the mosque, filed a new motion to dismiss the case because of lack of jurisdiction.