I hope that you’d kindly publish this reply to the letter titled “Killing Murder.” The writer accused the Palestinian society of being a “fundamentalist and extreme” society because of their reaction to the assassination of Shiekh Ahmad Yaseen. I wish to remind the author that it is Israel that ELECTED a prime minister with a record of war crimes. Just to refresh the readers’ memory I’ll name the massacres of Qibya (1953, 66 victims), Qalqilya (1956, 83 victims), The slaughtering of 273 Egyptian POWs, civilians and Sudanese workers at Sinai during the 1956 triple aggression on Egypt, and of course the famous Sabra and Shatela Massacre (1982, 900 victims), and last but not least the growing toll number of Palestinian being killed during the current uprising thanks to Sharons’ current cleansing policy, not to mention his participation in the Palestine war of 1948 (which lead to the driving of 750,000 Palestinian out of their lands) as a member of the Hagana group declared as a terrorist group by the British Mandate government. I also remind the writer that Israel has the only government that contains ministers calling publicly for the expulsion of Palestinians (such as Rahbaam Zaeevi, former Minister of tourism).
As for “Hamas Charter,” everybody knows that the PLO had an article in the National Charter calling for the destruction of Israel; how ever that didn’t ban them from signing Oslo agreements in 1994. The article was not removed until 1998 during President Clintons’ visit to Gaza. The charter is put to serve people, not vice versa, thus the charter doesn’t influence their policy towards Israel, which Shiekh Yaseen lead a major change in it by declaring that his movement would accept a withdrawal from the West Bank (which includes east Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip according to UN resolution 242 as basis for an unlimited cease fire.
I’m surprised though of how ignorant the writer seems in defending Sharons, decision of assassinating Sheikh Yaseen. Sharon knows that killing Yaseen won’t have an effect on Hamas because he is nothing but a spiritual leader; he has no calls over the military wing. However, he knows that if he does kill him, Hamas will retaliate furiously, and then the Israeli people will forget Mr, Sharon’s Financial scandals, and the recent scandal of freeing 400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a personal friend of his from Hizbulla.
Shiekh Yaseen is a religious leader who (although I disagree with some of his recent approaches regarding resistance) contributed a lot in the building of an institutional society. During Shiekh Yaseens actual leadership for Hamas, the movement adopted a “Military Targets only” policy. But thanks to Israeli policy in targeting moderate leaders (like sheikh Yaseen) and putting them in jail, a more extreme generation, aggravated by continuous Israeli violations of Palestinian rights and holy sights, decided to use the same methods of the Israeli army and target Israeli civilians.
The writer says that Israel banned Kakh , well, my reply is, a country that oppresses and occupies and entire nation doesn’t need to ban Kakh, for they are a terrorist state themselves.
Israel is refusing to simply implement UN resolutions to end this dilemma, just implement 242 and 198 and this conflict is over. However, before I close my letter, I’d like to ask the author of the letter the following: “What is your plan for peace?”, that is of course , if you have one.
Said Alhayek
Gaza, Palestine
