The news is not that he spied, but he became Christian and claims that Palestinians have no hope if they keep holding on to their God. That is pretty incredible.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/03/100303_mosab_hassan_yousef.shtml
Latest Updates: Hamas RSS
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arif
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abunoor
They, too, escaped after al-Mabhouh’s murder but have been extradited to Dubai from Jordan.
So was this a joint Mossad-Fatah operation to decapitate Hamas?In the Middle East anything is possible.
(Thanks Angry Arab)
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johnpi
Daud Abdullah, director of Middle East Monitor, writes in Al Jazeera about Israel’s recent annexation of several mosques in the West Bank by designating them “Jewish Heritage sites.”
Abdullah writes that there has been some speculation that this is an effort to create a distraction from the developing negative media frenzy over Mossad’s recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai.
A very good point:
Observers have rightly noted that while the European Union maintains its proscription of Hamas as a “terrorist organisation”, they are yet to produce any evidence that the organisation has carried out a single military operation outside Occupied Palestine.
This is in stark contrast to the Israeli government, which threatens, attacks and occupies the lands of neighbouring countries, and assassinates its opponents in other sovereign nations.
Related: Dubai has now named 26 suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabouh, the Hamas figure.
Israel’s use of counterfeit foreign passports led one Australian reporter to worry about “terrorists” ability to do the same thing. Richard remarks:
Doesn’t this tell you heaps about western prejudices in favor of our own and against the unwashed hordes, that this reporter would not have realized that any nation that carries out an assassination on foreign soil while abusing the security of numerous erstwhile allies is engaging in terrorism. Why can’t these Mossad agents be called terrorists too?
If Israel would lift one finger to make a genuine effort toward peace and resolution I’d be happy to promote it, but everything Israel does seems to go in the other direction.
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johnpi
Al Qaeda sympathisers detained in West Bank, Gaza.
Palestinian security forces detained six radical Islamists with explosives in the West Bank in the first known arrests of al Qaeda-inspired militants in the territory, a senior Palestinian officer said.
In the Gaza Strip, controlled by a separate, Hamas-run administration, the authorities announced the arrest of a leader of a pro-al Qaeda group, the latest sign of a crackdown on radicals accused of bombing security offices and Internet cafes.
….Hamas security officials cited 12 bombings which they believed were carried out by radical movements in recent weeks, the highest number of such attacks since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.
Vehicles belonging to two Hamas officials and the office of a Hamas security service were blown up in the bombings. There were no casualties.
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the head of a fundamentalist group known as the Jaljalat was arrested late on Tuesday and that several other members of groups supporting al Qaeda were detained in recent days. “A preliminary investigation linked (him) to several if not all of the bombing attacks against security offices and personnel and Internet cafes. He is being interrogated,” said Ehab al-Ghsain, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
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johnpi
The Pakistani Taliban have been trying to take credit for the recent bombing that killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan, but Syed Saleem Shahzad reports that it was actually Ilyas Kashmiri and his 313 brigade, which is comprised of veteran combatants from the Kashmir conflict that were highly trained by the Pakistani military.
Supporting Kashmir ain’t what it used to be: Militant groups fighting for Kashmiri liberation seem to have largely been colonized and absorbed into Al Qaeda’s global caliphate project. Some Islamist national liberation movements, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, have resisted being assimilated into the Al Qaeda borg.
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johnpi
The next Palestinian Authority president could be a Hamas Legislator.
If Abbas decides to forgo the chairmanship before the elections take place, his successor by default is speaker of the Parliament – Hamas lawmaker Aziz Dweik.
Dweik, 59, is not slated to run in the elections as a Hamas candidate. The likely candidate would be Isma’il Haniyya, the current prime minister of the de facto Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. But the very notion of a Hamas leader heading the Palestinian Authority is in itself a symbolic victory for the Islamist movement, and a hair-raising option for Israel and Fatah.
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission announced on Thursday that it did not have the capacity to hold elections on January 24, as originally planned, effectively postponing the elections indefinitely.
How would Fatah respond:
A Hamas figure in power is certainly not something that Fatah would take lightly.
“You’re talking about a rival from a party which carried out a coup in Gaza, a party that is refusing to sign the Egyptian reconciliation paper that Fatah signed,” Dr Milhem said. “So you’re talking about conceding to Hamas. For Fatah this is not acceptable at all.”
Actually, I think it was Fatah that held the coup, not Hamas.
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johnpi
A reporter at Huffpo has interviewed the foreign relations ministers of Hamas and Hezbollah. What’s striking in the introduction is that again and again these groups are defined by their social welfare programs:
Hamas and Hezbollah are both seasoned denizens of the US State Department’s List of Terrorist Organizations, a designation that seems odd when one considers that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese would fall through the cracks without the vital social services — healthcare, education, employment, infrastructure development — these two groups provide their indigenous populations. Ask a secular Palestinian or Lebanese civilian which of their political parties they trust most, and even the most begrudging among them may name Hamas or Hezbollah as the “cleanest” of their politicians.
And this influence continues regionally. Polls throughout the Middle East consistently point to Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah as the most popular leader in the Arab world. Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal is never far behind — a far cry from his main political opponent, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, whose US-supported Fatah party is viewed as corrupt and incompetent, sometimes even by its own supporters. Despite US and Israeli efforts to isolate these groups by swathing them in the dreaded “terrorist” label and all that implies post 9-11, even pro-US Arab leaders are careful not to malign these groups. Popularity rubs off, so to speak.
I’ve previously contrasted these organizations with the Taliban, which are described much differently.
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johnpi
Reading Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid’s “Taliban” the much-praised book about the ’student movement’ that was published just prior to Sept. 11th.
An observation: It’s interesting to note how different the Taliban are as an Islamic movement in control of a population from other Islamic movements with similar responsibilities. Hizbollah and Hamas essentially made their names and established their ’street credibilty’ through focus on social welfare and improving a population’s well-being.
Hamas funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. “Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities,” writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. The Palestinian Authority often fails to provide such services, and Hamas’s efforts in this area—as well as a reputation for honesty, in contrast to the many Fatah officials accused of corruption—help to explain the broad popularity it summoned to defeat Fatah in the PA’s recent elections.
The Taliban, in contrast, were distinct for their extraordinary lack of interest in the social welfare of the populations it came to control. Here’s Rashid’s description of events after the Taliban kicked the NGOs out of Kabul in the summer of 1998:
With more than half of Kabul’s 1.2 million people benefiting in some way from NGO handouts, women and children were immediate victims when aid was cut off. Food distribution, health care and and the city’s fragile water distribution network were all seriously affected. As people waved empty kettles and buckets at passing Taliban jeeps, their reply to the population was characteristic of their lack of social concern. “We Muslims believe God the Almighty will feed everybody one way or another.”
Since the Taliban had dubbed Mullah Omar Amir of all Muslims, not just Afghans – demonstrating transnationalist aspirations – I guess they felt they could use the ‘royal we.’ Tagging this post ‘Muslim-on-Muslim violence’ since the Kabul victims of Taliban indifference were probably all Muslims.
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johnpi
Salafism: A new threat to Hamas.
On the streets of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, clusters of men wear long tunics over baggy trousers, a costume common in Pakistan but virtually unknown among Palestinians — until recently.
It is an emblem of Salafism, a branch of Islam that advocates restoring a Muslim empire across the Middle East and into Spain. Some Salafis preach violence, even killing Muslims deemed not pious enough. While historically a fringe group in the southeastern Mediterranean, Salafis have sought inroads in Lebanon and Jordan and are battling Hamas in Gaza.
While Al Qaeda, which shares its conservative religious views and promotion of holy war, has not gained a foothold in the region, Salafism may be the wave of the future. In Algeria and Morocco, similar movements have expanded in the past two decades to create havoc through civilian bombings and attacks on the police.
“This is the challenge we face in the world,” said Bilal Saab, a researcher in Middle East security at the University of Maryland in College Park. “We are getting better at dealing with insurgencies, though Afghanistan is proving to be an exception. It is much more difficult to combat the constant threat of underground urban terrorism.”
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johnpi
Richard Silverstein sheds light on some interesting facts about Libya’s status at the UN that makes the Goldstone report – which indicts Israel for war crimes – an issue that can’t be easily dispensed with a security council veto from the US.
Libya not only sits on the Security Council, it also is president of the General Assembly. So that means that Qaddafi has the U.S. over a boulder twice over. If the U.S. vetoes Security Council consideration of the Report, Libya can introduce it before the General Assembly, where we don’t have veto. If Abbas hadn’t singed himself so badly in mishandling this affair, he might’ve been able to weasel out of this by telling Libya to take a hike. But Hamas already has his ass in a sling over his betrayal of the Gazans. He can’t very well dump Goldstone twice.
So Obama may have the Goldstone nightmare return to haunt him in the Security Council. It might even be passed by the General Assembly. So much for our president’s supposed political adeptness.
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johnpi
Palestinians to ask UN to pass Goldstone report after all.
The move appeared to mark a change in position, as the Palestinian delegation on Friday backed a move at the U.N. Human Rights Council to defer a vote on whether the report should be passed on.
Erakat said Abbas’s decision came “in light of the controversy that has arisen” around the report, which accused Israel and Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes during the three-week land, air and sea assault on Gaza that Israel started on Dec. 27.
“We want to discuss the report in international bodies so they will take decisions on what emerged in the report, in order to insure that the crimes committed by Israel against our people are never repeated,” he said.
….The Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza has led a chorus of criticism of the move, accusing Abbas of betraying the 1,400 Palestinians killed in Israel’s.
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johnpi
Marc Lynch considers the ramifications to the Obama administration and the Palestinian Authority of the stifling of the Goldstone report (via Richard Silverstein).
The most likely tactical considerations behind the administration’s decision [to block Goldstone] seem short-sighted. Its move likely responded to the intense public and private Israeli campaign against the report, and probably aimed at winning back some positive relations with the Israelis and maintaining momentum on the peace process. But if the administration’s hope was that killing the report would make the issue quietly go away while winning some political capital with the Israelis, it is likely to be disappointed. Quite the contrary: the report is becoming a major political issue in the Arab world, badly damaging the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, while Obama seems to be getting little credit from Israeli public opinion or the Israeli government.
…There seems to be little question that Abbas’s decision to go along with American pressure will have a significant impact on the popularity and legitimacy of the PA…Whatever gains made by Fatah after its Bethlehem conference and by Fayyad with the announcement of his agenda for a Palestinian state are likely to be washed away in this deluge. The credibility of the Hamas narrative about the PA’s collaboration with Israel and unrepresentative nature will be strongly enhanced. And it will not help Salam Fayyad establish authority that he has been fingered by some sources as the person directly responsible for the decision.
Why was the PA leadership put in this untenable situation?
Lynch goes on to point out that the Israelis seem to have taken the American protection for granted while continuing to villify and dismiss Obama. Lose-lose for Obama all the way around.
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johnpi
Israel swaps 19 Palestinian women for soldier tape.
All but one of the Palestinian women due to be released are from the West Bank and none has been directly implicated in killing Israelis.
The women include members of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
A 15-year-old Palestinian girl who was on the initial list of prisoners to be released in the swap was freed on Wednesday after a parole board shortened her sentence in a development unconnected with the prisoner swap.
The teenager was serving 11 months for attempted murder and an attack on a police officer.
The story goes on to report that there are 320 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails under the age of 18.
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johnpi
Jund Ansar Allah, the group that announced an “al-Qaida-style” Islamic emirate in the southern Gaza Strip and that claims to be the keeper of the flame of true Islamic virtue there, has changed its focus to revenge.
A radical Muslim group “Warriors of God” on Monday said it works to appoint a new leader after its late Imam was killed in clashes with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We are now waiting our new Emir,” the group said in a statement
Moreover, the group vowed to target the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers in retaliation for the killing of their leader and some followers in recent clashes.
….“We will revenge your blood and will widow your (Hamas) women in the same way you widowed our holy fighters’ women,” the statement said.
The Muslim group, that sometimes calls itself “Army of God followers,” rejected Hamas’ accusations that it was behind a series of attacks that targeted internet cafes and wedding parties over the past months.
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johnpi
Hamas forces blew up the home of Sheikh Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi, leader of the radical group Jund Ansar Allah, or Soldiers of the Partisans of God, Hamas sources said.
The death toll has risen to 21, injured to 121.
Jund Ansar Allah is part of the radical Islamist movement that follows the doctrines of the “Salaf,” or the predecessors — referring to the early generations of Muslims. They reject all modern influences such as politics and government.
The group accused Hamas of not being Islamic enough, saying they care more about pleasing “tyrants” than “obeying God.”
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johnpi
‘Islamic Emirate’ declared in Gaza, battle with Hamas kills 13, injures 100.
Speaking before weekly prayers, Abdul Latif Moussa — known to followers by the al-Qaeda-style nom de guerre Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi — announced the start of theocratic rule in the Palestinian territories, starting at Rafah.
“We declare the birth of the Islamic Emirate,” declared Maqdessi, a heavily-bearded, middle-aged cleric in a red robe who was guarded by four black-clad, masked men with assault rifles. One wore what appeared to be an explosive suicide belt.
An audience of several hundred men filled the mosque with cheers and shouts. Al-Qaeda uses the historical term “emirate” to mean clerical rule across the Islamic world.
Ismail Haniyeh, who heads Gaza’s Hamas government, denied in his Friday sermon that there were any non-Palestinian gunmen in the territory, as alleged by Israel which charges that veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken up residence.
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thabet
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thabet
Sky’s foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall is hacked off with fanatical pro-Israeli (or should that be anti-Arab?) blogs repeating the lie that Hamas held a mass wedding of ‘child brides’. He had a series of tweets about this last night, ending with the following:
Heathlander has more.
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johnpi
Resistance rises within Hamas: Government (of Hamas officials) refuses to support the ministry of religious affairs ‘virtue campaign’ to avoid coersive pressure on Gazans, while ordering a review of the Gaza Supreme Court chief’s order that compels all women to cover their hair in court for the same reason.
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johnpi
More on brother Mu-adh’s post on modern science and Islamic teachings: For further reading, he excerpts the writings of one Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi, that are frankly Jew-baiting and anti-Semitic, full of references to “Jewish control systems” and “Jewish subversion” – and therefore discredited to my mind. See Suhaib Webb writing about the people who take advantage of “the ignorance of some Muslims, and the media machines in order to promote that Islam is a hateful religion” for a fuller rebuttal to this kind of conduct. As Imam Webb points out, “the community of the prophet had KNOWN hypocrites,” and this one is no different (NOTE: Imam Webb is speaking about other people and other subjects. The specific criticism of Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi here is mine and mine alone.).
I went to visit the web page of Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi. In his most current post he smears the Palestinians in general and Hamas in particular (for turning Shia, which is contemptuous and dismissive of Shia Muslims in itself) and calls the Chinese “sub-human.” The plight of the Uighurs is a superior concern over the Palestinians in part because ‘they still use an Arabic script.’
In the world outside a terrible crisis has broken and one which must involve the whole world community of Muslims. I refer to the abomination of the murder of Uighur men, women, and children and the destruction of the markets, houses and mosques of the Uighur people. It is time – and I call on our Arab brothers especially – to forget Palestine, that dismal nationalist failure. Hamas have turned Sh’ia and the other group are mired in corruption. Their problem is nothing to the devastating planned annihilation of a great Muslim people, one which still uses an Arabic script.
The Chinese are at war with us and the least action we can perform is to sanction all trade connections with the communist atheist entity. No Muslim business, no Muslim person, no Muslim nation should have any commercial intercourse with the sub-human regime.
Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi goes on to issue a fatwa:
…goods marked “Made in China” I declare forbidden to all Muslims…
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johnpi
Yesterday I linked to a story about Hamas forcing women lawyers to wear headscarves despite the group’s vow to never force its beliefs on others. This story shows Hamas coercion is expanding into other areas:
In government schools, head scarves for female students are supposed to be optional. But one high school has made robes and head scarves a condition for enrollment. Teachers are now being asked to pressure the girls to put them on, said Education Ministry spokesman Khaled Radi.
Police are enforcing the restrictions on mannequins and salesmen say they ripped off the tags on packages of panties and bras which showed women in underwear.
Other shopkeepers said they were told to remove the mannequins’ heads so they don’t violate the Islamic ban on copying the human form.
Enforcement is spotty and seems restricted to working-class markets. Most traders said they moved the mannequins back after police left.
Lingerie seller Mohammed Helu, 23, hid his under-clad mannequins but was allowed to display an outfit of a plunging top and miniskirt with the mannequin’s head covered by a plastic bag.
On a Gaza beach, Mohammed Amta, 18, said a plainclothes security man told him to put on a shirt, saying his appearance was un-Islamic, and to remove his two silver rings and woven bracelet because they were a sign of Western culture.
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johnpi
Facebook blocks Hamas leader’s fan pages.
All fan pages bearing the name of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah were deleted and no reasons were given to justify this action, said the administrator of Haniyah’s fan pages.
The administrator warned that Facebook might take similar steps toward fan pages of other Hamas leaders like politburo chief Khaled Mashaal whose fan page has more than 17,000 members. One of Haniyah’s pages had more than 10,000 members.
Activists launched a Facebook campaign calling for the return of Haniyah’s page and demanding that the website administration stop tampering with any pages related to leaders of the Palestinian resistance, the London-based al-Hayat reported Sunday.
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johnpi
How conservative Islamic political movements lose trust and support:
Gaza judge: Female lawyers must wear headscarf.
Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 and vowed never to impose its conservative values on others. But it has taken a series of steps in recent months that appear to be aimed at forcing residents to accept its Islamic-oriented social agenda….
Subyiya Juma, a female lawyer, said the judge’s decision would affect only 10 or so lawyers — since the vast majority of the 150 registered female lawyers already cover their hair.
Juma, who does not wear a headscarf, said the point wasn’t the number of women, but that freedoms were being eroded.
“This is dangerous — it’s a clear violation of the law, it is taking away our personal freedoms — and by whom? The very person who is meant to defend our freedoms,” Juma said.
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thabet
The Only Democracy In The Middle East: no better than a ‘terrorist organisation’.
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johnpi
Hamas security thwarts possible attempt on Jimmy Carter’s life.
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johnpi
Hamas and the politics of match-making.
At 29, Tahani is considered a spinster by the standards of deeply conservative Gaza. So in her search for a husband, she turned for help to the best in the marriage business: the Islamic militant group Hamas.
“I gaze at all the men on the street and think, ‘Oh God, isn’t there just one for me?’” said the young woman with dark skin and honey-colored eyes, set off by a maroon headscarf.
Her application is among 287 from single women in the files of the Tayseer Association for Marriage and Development in Gaza. Photographs stapled to the files show Muslim women in headscarves, some wearing makeup, some smiling, others looking startled. They all want a husband, and the Hamas loyalists running the association are intent on finding a man for each….
“This is our vision of humanitarian work,” said Wael Zard, director of the Tayseer association. “This makes people close to Hamas and makes Hamas close to the people.”
Credit to Hamas: They identify a need and work to meet it.
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aziz
Hamas is ready for the two-state solution whereas Bibi Netanyahu is an existential threat to Israel.
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abunoor
Angry Arab points to this nugget from Mort Zuckerman: imagining a Shi’a — Sunni divide amongst Palestinians.
No wonder the Palestinian Reconciliation Conference in Cairo ended in failure. Even the lure of billions of dollars in aid has not brought Fatah Sunnis in Judea and Samaria, i.e., the West Bank, any closer to Shiite supporters of Hamas in Gaza. These are two parallel lines that cannot meet, and this division will persist.
Oh, so there are Sunnis in the West Bank and Shi’a in Gaza…and Hamas’ supporters are Shi’a. Thank you for that, Mr. Zuckerman.
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plimfix
“If the MCB is serious about tackling extremism, it should immediately expel extremists such as Daud Abdullah from its own ranks,” said Ed Husain, co-director of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank. “The man is a fanatic.” The Quilliam Foundation was named after a famous British Muslim whom Ed believed exemplified the stance of his “counter-extremist thinktank”. Except Quilliam was an Islamist. Read your history book next time, Ed.
As a long-standing admirer of Badshah Khan, I condemn all forms of anti-colonial violence as counterproductive. Of course, there are quite a few non-Muslims on the political far-left in Britain who support what they view as legitimate anti-colonial resistance, but I am not aware of Sir Edward Husain calling them extremists or fanatics, or of accusing them of “endorsing terrorism”. Perhaps he did. I’ve never heard Ed condemn the British government for selling arms to Israel, or giving military support to Israel, either. Perhaps he did. Or perhaps there is only one kind of “extremist” as far as Ed and his friends are concerned. And perhaps that’s why so many journalists have Ed’s phone number.
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johnpi
Bad news from the Gaza reconstruction conference:
Clinton prefers to double-down on the shopworn “West Bank first, Fatah only” policy which has been conspiciously failing for the last two years. The concrete manifestation: two-thirds of the U.S. contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza will go not to Gaza but to the West Bank.
