In Gaza, Hamas's Insults to Jews Complicate Peace

By STEVEN ERLANGER

GAZA -- In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew.

"Jews are a people who cannot be trusted," Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. "They have been traitors to all agreements -- go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us."

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children's programs praise "martyrdom," teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 "road map" peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.

Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.

More pervasive than the Abbas whose doctoral thesis at Patrice Lumumba U in Moscow was a study on how the Holocaust contained 600,000-750,000? And by the way about that SIGNIFICANT progress Fatah has made ...

Intended to indoctrinate the young to its brand of radical Islam, which combines politics, social work and military resistance, including acts of terrorism, the programs of Al Aksa television and radio, including crucial Friday sermons, are an indication of how far from reconciliation Israelis and many Palestinians are.

Hamas's grip on Gaza matters, but what may matter more in the long run is its control over propaganda and education there, breeding longer-term problems for Israel, and for peace. No matter what Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree upon, there is concern here that the attitudes being instilled will make a sustainable peace extremely difficult.

"If you take a sample on Friday, you're bound to hear incitement against the Jews in the prayers and the imam's sermon," said Mkhaimer Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University here. "He uses verses from the Koran to say how the Jews were the enemies of the prophet and didn't keep their promises to the prophet 1,400 years ago."

Mr. Abusada is a Muslim and political independent. "You have young people, and everyone has to listen to the imam whether you believe him or not," he said. "By saying the same thing over and over, you find a lot of people believing it, especially when he cites the Koran or hadith," the sayings of the prophet.

Radwan Abu Ayyash, deputy minister of culture in Ramallah, ran the Palestinian Broadcasting Company until 2005. Hamas "uses religious language to motivate simple people for political as well as religious goals," he said. "People don't distinguish between the two." He said he found a lot of what Al Aksa broadcast "disgusting and unprofessional."

Every Palestinian thinks the situation in Gaza is ugly, he said. "But what is not fine is to build up children with a culture of hatred, of closed minds, a culture of sickness. I don't think they always know what they are creating. People use one weapon, language, without realizing that they also use it against themselves."

Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli group, said Hamas took its view of Jews from what it considered the roots of Islam, then tried to make the present match the past.

Hey, the muslim brotherhood, and HAMAS is just a BRANCH of it, was nazified in the 1930's.
However the real feeling is because the jews are not dhimmis and the quran.

Abu Saleh, who asked that his full name not be used because of his critical views, is worried about his children. His eldest son, 13, likes to watch Al Aksa, especially the nationalist songs and military videos. "I talk to them about Hamas, but to be honest, it's scary and you have to watch it over time," he said. "When kids are 17 or 18, you don't know what happens. They get enraged and can attach themselves to radical groups."

Marwan M. Abu Ras, 50, an imam who taught at Hamas's Islamic University for 25 years, has an advice show on Al Aksa. He is proud that his show uses sign language for the deaf.

The chairman of the Palestinian Scholars League, and a Hamas legislator, Mr. Abu Ras is popularly called "Hamas's mufti," because he is ready to give religious sanction to Hamas political structures.

Last month, he criticized Egypt for closing the Gaza border at Israel's request. He complained, "We are besieged by the sons of Arabism and Islam, as well as by the brothers of apes and pigs."

He tried to distinguish between religious and political language, and then said: "The Israelis can't accept criticism. They overreact, like any guilty person." Israel for him is an enemy. "This is an open war with Israel, with each side trying to press the other," he said. A war? "If it's not a war, what is it?" he asked.

The Future:

Mark Regev, spokesman for Mr. Olmert, called on "Arab leaders who are moderate and believe in peace to speak out more strongly against extremist elements." He called the "incitement to hatred and violence standard Hamas operating procedure," adding, "In Hamas education and broadcasting they turn the suicide bomber who murders the innocent into a positive role model, and they portray Jews in the most negative terms, that too often reminds us of language used in Europe in the first half of the 20th century."

The "serious question," he said, "is what ethos are they promoting?"

Hazim el-Sharawi, 30, the original host of the Farfour character on Hamas television, and known as "Uncle Hazim," has no doubts. It was his idea to have Farfour killed by an Israeli interrogator, he said. "We wanted to send a message through this character that would fit the reality of Palestinian life."

Israel is the source, he insisted. "A child sees his neighbors killed, or blown up on the beach, and how do I explain this to a child that already knows? The occupation is the reason; it creates the reality. I just organize the information for him."

The point is simple, he said: "We want to connect the child to Palestine, to his country, so you know that your original city is Jaffa, your capital is Jerusalem and that the Jews took your land and closed your borders and are killing your friends and family."

Condi, GW, your pressure on Israel could hardly be more moronic. Find a way for people like Abu Saleh to speak up and not be murdered as apostates and collaborators and then in some years PERHAPS you will have progress. Of course, that means HAMAS will have to be dead. And all they stand for....like the Quran.

Best of luck