The Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas compared itself on Sunday to Jews who revolted against the Nazis during the Holocaust, amid a public relations effort on the 31st anniversary of its establishment.
In a message posted to its English-language Twitter account, the group wrote, “If the Palestinian resistance is considered acts of terror, Can we call Nelson Mandela, who resisted the apartheid repression a hero? What can we call the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by the Jewish population against the Nazi repression?”
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, often uses the term “resistance” as a euphemism for acts of violence against Israelis, including civilians. One of the group’s officials reportedly called a Dec. 9 shooting attack in the West Bank that wounded seven people — including a pregnant Israeli woman whose infant was delivered prematurely and later died — an “expression of the spirit of resistance.”
The tweet was part of a series published by Hamas under the hashtags #WhatsHamas and #Hamas31, which also featured quotes from its leader Ismail Haniyeh, who spoke at a Sunday rally marking the group’s anniversary. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were in attendance, among them some children wearing military fatigues and holding mock weapons.
“This is the day of resistance in Gaza, West Bank, Jerusalem and everywhere,” Haniyeh said, according to one tweet. “We are happy with the West Bank, which is the most important battlefield.”
Many of the messages echoed points Hamas shared in a statement days earlier, in which it condemned the anticipated US plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and said it “retains the right to resist the Israeli occupation with all means possible.”
The Islamist group affirmed its commitment to “liberating Palestine, declaring the sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and freeing the Palestinian detainees held in the Israeli jails.” Once these goals are achieved, Hamas — which has been accused by human rights advocates of perpetrating severe abuses in territory under its rule — said it will build a society “that adopts and promotes freedom, justice, democracy, civil peace, women rights, vulnerable groups’ protection, equality, unity, openness, and peace.”
It called for “national university” with Fatah, the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority, while knocking the “negative and uncooperative stance” of its leadership.
“Most importantly, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority has imposed [severe] punitive measures on the Gaza Strip that drastically deteriorated the humanitarian conditions in the beleaguered enclave,” Hamas charged.
The group also hailed the Great March of Return protests it organized along the Israeli-Gaza border since March, asserting, “The Palestinian people have replaced their cause on top of the region and world’s agenda.”
Israel has accused Hamas of orchestrating the demonstrations as a cover for cross-border attacks, and joined the United States earlier this month in supporting a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the group for “repeatedly firing rockets into Israel and for inciting violence, thereby putting civilians at risk.”
The measure faced opposition from Arab states and failed to gather the 2/3 majority of votes required to pass.
The Algemeiner Journal
{Matzav.com}
