Israel Matzav

Surprise: Hamas contradicts what it told Goldstone

Hamas told Justice Richard Richard Goldstone that it had no direct or indirect links to terrorist organizations. Goldstone bought the story hook, line and sinker, and therefore his report makes no mention of Hamas being a terrorist organization. Now that Richard, Richard is out of sight and out of mind, Hamas' true colors are coming through again.

The upper inscription (in red) reads “[Fathi] Hamad: We work in coordination with the resistance factions to make it easier for them to carry out their missions” (Safa News Agency website, October 28, 2009).

The lower inscription (in black) reads: “Hamad: We hold routine meetings with the
faction commanders to remove obstacles.”

There's more:

1. On October 28 Fathi Hamad, interior minister of the de facto Hamas administration, gave a speech at a conference in Gaza City sponsored by the Association of Factions and [Trade] Unions. In his speech he described the close ties between Hamas’ interior ministry and the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip (“the resistance factions”), and the support it gave to the various organizations. The conference was attended by commanders of Hamas’ internal security forces operating in the Gaza Strip.

2. The following were the main points quoted by the Hamas-affiliated Safa News Agency, October 28, 2009:1

i) The [Hamas] interior ministry “coordinates with all the factions of the resistance in [the] Gaza [Strip]” [i.e., the terrorist organizations].

ii) The ministry makes every effort “to protect them and make it easier for them to carry out every aspect of their jihadist missions.”

iii) There is routine coordination between the interior ministry and the various organizations: “We routinely meet with the commanders of the factions [i.e., the terrorist organizations] to remove obstacles between us. We have ended the security coordination with the occupation [i.e., the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel] and have replaced it with jihadist coordination” [i.e., operational coordination to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel].

3. Fathi Hamad, as Hamas’ interior minister, has a great deal of influence on the implementation of Hamas’ terrorist attack policy. That is because the internal security forces are subordinate to the ministry and serve as Hamas’ main tool for enforcing its policies, and are used by Hamas to supervise the extent, nature and number of terrorist attacks. His statements were intended to deflect Fatah’s accusations that once Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, it abandoned the “resistance” and has since prevented the military-terrorist networks of Fatah and the other organizations “from resisting the occupation” (Safa News Agency website, October 28, 2009).

Hamad isn't the first to make statements like that either. Read the whole thing.

So is Richard Richard a naive fool or a malicious opportunist? Based on everything I've read, I'd bet on the latter.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:00 PM