Saturday, February 06, 2010
Elder of ZiyonThis is an obvious lie. Hamas rockets were doing nothing else but targeting civilians in Cast Lead, as I showed in a recent post. They just redefined Sderot and Ashkelon and Be'er Sheva and Kiryat Gat as "military bases" and kept right on shooting at the same civilian cities they always had.
Back in 2008, a very telling episode happened that may have been the very point in time when Hamas stopped publicly bragging about targeting civilians. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had a long interview in which he answered a series of questions from people, and in one of his answers he said:
I think I have responded to the sister I’laamiyyah’s first question previously. But in turn, I ask her: and what is HAMAS’s justification for killing those whose killing is not permitted from the children in the Israeli colonies with the blessed Qassam rockets which don’t differentiate between a child and an adult, and moreover, perhaps [don’t differentiate] between the Jews and the Arabs and Muslims working in those colonies or in the streets and markets of Occupied Palestine, even though the Shari’ah forbids their killing.Al Qaeda was scolding Hamas for killing innocent children!
Hamas meekly answered:
"Hamas doesn't mean to kill children by its rockets," spokesman Ismail Radwan told reporters in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. His remarks were in response to al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Aymanal-Zawahiri who said Hamas' random rockets kill Jews women and children in violation of Islam law.Since that incident, Hamas has been more reticent in bragging about killing civilians.
But Radwan added that "the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may involve some killings of children."
In this case, though, Fatah made fun of Hamas for this apology, and in response Hamas denied apologizing.
UPDATE: To certain audiences, Hamas has no problems showing who it is targeting: (first poster and idea h/t sshender)
