Islamic Jihad leader: Israel must be wiped out of existence
Organizers say up to 100,000 people attend largest Islamic Jihad rally in Gaza in several years; Hamas leader calls for unity against Israel.
By Reuters Tags: Gaza Islamic Jihad HamasTens of thousands of supporters of the militant Islamic Jihad movement rallied in the streets of Gaza on Friday, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
Young men and boys wearing white T-shirts with a slogan in the shape of a rifle carried portraits of militants killed in combat, under the black flags of Islamic Jihad.
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A Palestinian militant of the Islamic Jihad stands guard during a rally in Gaza City, Friday, Oct. 29, 2010. |
| Photo by: AP Photo / Hatem Moussa |
Ramadan Shallah, the group's exiled chief, currently residing in Damascus, sent a recorded message marking the anniversary of the assassination of the group's leader Fathi Shiqaqi in Malta in 1995, by presumed Israeli secret agents.
"Israel will not bring peace to the region, it will only bring war and destruction and therefore, the slogan of all should be that Israel must be wiped out of existence," said
Shallah, who is on a United States wanted list.
Senior leaders of the ruling Islamist group, Hamas, joined the open-air gathering, the largest for years in honor of Islamic Jihad with up to 100,000 attending according to its organizers.
Hamas allowed the group to use city terrain it usually reserves exclusively for its own rallies, and Hamas forces provided security for the parade by its smaller rival.
'Referendum against peace talks'
Islamic Jihad carried out a series of stabbing attacks in the 1980s against Israeli citizens who used to visit the Gaza Strip to purchase cheap goods and later turned to suicide bombings inside Israel.
Its militants continue to harass southern Israel with sporadic rocket and mortar fire from inside Gaza, frequently paying with their lives in swift retaliatory strikes by the Israeli air force.
Islamic Jihad officials said Friday's turnout was a "referendum by the Palestinian people rejecting peace-making with Israel."
Negotiations between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have faltered after Israel's 10-month freeze of settlemement construction expired on September 26.
"The choice of negotiation has reached deadlock, and we are wondering why is there such an insistence by the Palestinian Authority on negotiation with the enemy," said Shallah.
He urged an end to peace talks and fresh efforts to heal the rift between Abbas's Fatah movement and the Islamist militants.
Raising hopes that the three-year-old split may be coming to an end, Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya said it was time for unity in the face of Israel.
"There is only the choice of Jihad and nothing else ... There is no more room to make bets, on the Americans or anyone else," said Hayya.
President Abbas, however, rules out any return to violence against Israelis in pursuit of Palestinian statehood. He has said he will pursue diplomatic alternatives should the peace talks with Netanyahu collapse definitively.
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Long memories. Not unlike Israel and its assassins who will go after for as long as it takes anyone that they see as having done them wrong. Not much different then Hamas as both are purveyors of terror and as such will conscious free carry out their own brand of justice.
Extremists on both sides are trying to derail the peace process. The difference is that one set of extremist lunatics are direct participants in the peace process while the other set is just ranting and raving as usual. Guess which set of extremists are liers and hypocrits...
If your peace loving neighbor had dispossessed you, sometimes twice. Razed your home, (while asking you to stay), prevented you from returning to your freshly razed homes and villages. Occupied you for 42 years. Illegally acquired some 50% of your rightful territories, illegally annexed territories it was occupying (occupation is a position of TRUST) .... would you just lay down and let them screw you or would you want rid of them?
Those crazy Gazans ......... after having had their land stolen by Israel, after being locked in an open air concentration camp on an Israeli imposed 'diet', after seeing their women and children killed by Israeli tank gunners, after having had their homes, workshops and factories bombed, after having white phosphorous rained down on their heads, after seeing their young men and schools targeted, after seeing even their poor fishermen killed for daring to catch fish ........ don't like Israel - what a surprise! Israel treats these people like untermensch so do not be surprised at this reaction to your barbaric policies.
That's a very impressive protest. Guess there a lot of people available to be milling around when a culture can't create any industry or jobs other than hate. Try starting a business and then you won't have time for uselessly spending your time on nothingness. Your customer target base should be Hamas leadership since they keep the millions upon millions given to them. Profit margins could be quite good if you can get past your hateful culture.
Try to make peace with these poor palestinians, who are brain washed and handled like robots by fanatics ! Unfortunelly is impossible !
is right to prefer diplomacy to violence which creates more sufferings on both sides. Therefore, peace must be reached in the WB and Jerusalem. Israel is a fact and will remain there.
Seems to me that the Israelis and the wider Jewish community of the world are in full agreement. Netanyahu wants to humiliate the Palestinians more than he wants to end the conflict. Who can deny the self-destructive nature of current Israeli politics? World Jewry won't be satisfied until Israel brings catastrophe on itself. Islamic Jihad and the Israeli leadership seem to be in complete accord. I for one am now certain that we will see the end of this project in Jewish supremacism in our lifetime.
what most teachers told me. It gives life purpose and through focus and hard work you obtain your objectives (even if they are not in line with societies 'standards'). Try whiping your arse with sand all your life and see if you don't want to improve your life or 'get even with somebody' for lack of basic human resources that your enemy has plenty of. You are the product of your parents genes and social norms plus expectations > for Gaza that will be radical, what did you expect ? Improve their standard of living and they become more 'docile/civilized and productive'. Getting the picture why they are being kept isolated / dumbed down ? > The potential of the Palestinian people is great and they can form a greater unity than the Israeli people > the only thing they have in common is zionistic landgrab & hold. The Israeli 'culture' will become western-decadent and decline & dissolve into factions and be blown away by the wind. Hamas / Islamic Jihad is here to stay because that gives the people strength, not peace ! Good reasons to call Israel and America terrorists as well. Deal with the facts as they are, not as you or your politicians would want to see them. History favours the strong, the bold and most aggresive, ... there is a time for war and a time for peace > it's not a time for peace with these people > wake up ! It's about who wins this long struggle > the one who lays down his guns first has lost already. Get it ?! Stop saying Shalom.
Is this supposed to engender confidence in a negotiation process?
where are the protests from Obama and the US, where are the protests from EU to this railly? Israel should not send anymore one single track with goods to the Gaza strip.
I woud understand if the Gazans woud demonstrate for peace. It only strenghten the Israeli far right. On the other hand could I get the telephone number of the girl withy the gun? She is cute. I wouldn't mind to be shot by her; me sitting in a Merkava
Palestinian efforts to "wipe Israel out of existance" are becoming less and less likely as time goes on. Maybe Ahmadinejad will nuke the entire Levant and make it uninhabitable for everybody--Israelis and Palestinians both. This never-ending squabble is getting tiresome. Say, where did the lady in the photograph get an M-16 with a banana clip? (We used straight clips in Vietnam, but they had a tendency to jam if loaded with more than 18 rounds--they were supposed to hold 20 rounds.)
They have already been ethnically cleansed from the land they were living on. Gaza is a large refugee camp, this is not where they used to live. They have nothing to lose, they have already lost everything.
ISRAEL MADE A BLUNDER BY PULLING OUT OF CAST LEAD TO PLEASE THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT...IN RETROSPECT, A REALLY BAD MOVE.
100,000 Palestinians essentially welcome war! in a demonstration. If the call was for peace, few would show up. While in Israel none would show up for such a demonstration, but if a peace rally were held over 200,000 would attend
from the israeli side, 500 000 paticipate in a ongoing and daily crime called occupation
that is the result of israeli wrong policy of occupation.
Get your history straight, Tony. The death to Israel crowd sang that tune for the '48 borders, the '67 borders, the '73 borders and even after the withdrawal from Gaza. Read their words instead of substituting your own. It ain't pretty.
It's not just death to Israel. It's wiping Israel out of existence. If this is how they feel, there is no chance for any peace. Hamas believes in this and until it changes there will be no peace.
The Arab attempt to wipe out the Jews came long before the "occupation" excuse became the most recent excuse. They were chanting, "death to Israel" from 1948-67, when there WAS no occupation and they held those territories cleansed of Jews. You bray and you mewl and you say nothing of substance.
Isn't Denmark offering $15K for people like Tony to actually leave their country?
instead of teaching them peace and living with neighbors. You won't find Jewish kids carrying guns until they are enlisted in the army.
so don't blame the Israelis for what the Arabs brought upon themselves.
that it is the result of Israel's existance. Shame on you to believe that anything less than what IJ says is their goal
but he's too busy at the UN getting ready for the annual Halloween gala. I understand he is going as Gamal Nasser this year. Sure to be a hit!
This guy is atomic trash. Only a mossad operation, to capture and bring him alive to Israel, for trial, could manage this problem.
With such brains there can be no peace. Accept the facts please.
By coming out public with this, how do the Hamas think this will benift them? You are antagonizing and provoking the Israeli's and the US into war. Only thing that can make such a weaker foe so arrogant is the backing of Iran. Something is up and Iran will jump in head first without asking questions.
And this in the same edition as the article on multi-culturism...interesting.
EVERYTHING!
A bold headline at Haaretz.com which has been iterated widely for so many years "...Israel must be wiped of the map". Then you find Israelis arguing that you "terrorists" want to kill us all! I think this has become a fragile excuse to enrich the Israeli belief that Arabs want to end the existence of Israel. Ironically, you find Bibi and like-minded Israel uttering an even more extreme statements than these stupid statements made by "excited" people who are "proud" to see many people coming to see them! For instance, when Bibi says "Jerusalem is our eternal capital" and when Israelis call the westbank as "Judea and Samaira", they suggest that no Palestinians exist or will no longer exist in the future. So lets not talk about that in an extreme sense. Bibi is definitely more delicate in using the language. So he uses indirect statements that suggests the absence of Palestinians without mentioning stupid statements like those by Jihad people. So a star for his delicacy and shame on those who want to wipe Israel!!!
as a misinterpretation .....
Gideon Levy's editorial on the part of the Haaretz board will do just that
The Islamic world can be compared to a dinosaur and Israel would be its small brain, There is nothing like Israel to make Moslims understand and see reality, and to contemplate and apologize for their own shortcomings. wiping Israel out is similar to shooting your brain and suicide for Islam! Without Israel Islam cannot function nor can Islam be unified.
And the moran is pointing an AK 47 towards the crowd - his finger on the trigger and the gun on selective fire. That is what we call at red alert ready and a lot more while you are in a combat situation. So the crowd is hostile? or this is just another wannabe?
These guys wanted to wipe out Israel from the very beginning. Nice try.
Sorry, it won't wash, remember the 8000+ rockets followed by cast lead? Was that Bibi and Co?... no, it was the peace at any cost government and what did that bring?. Israel will stand from now till the return of their Messiah and no one or country will prevent their state.
if they want it, ok. Let hamas and IJ tell EU and US, we dont need your support, we want to fight Israel and we wont whine about the results. ok? fair? they say they want war, let's take them at their words and go at it. and let it be war to the death. no more civilian crap....I mean war until you raise a white flag from their little festering spider holes. ....and, let this scumbag who hides in damascus come back to the strip to lead his people in this jihad rather than letting others fight his battles while he comfortably eats his tahini in damascus.
lead em again
If they want war, they can have it. Let them tell the EU and US that they dont need their help, that they want to fight israel and thats that. Israel will be happy to oblige them. For all who dont understand plain english, hamas and islamic jihad want war. Israel does not want it, but, they will win it if they have to fight. You dont see massive rallies in israel stating war war war, wipe out all of gaza..etc... why do the EU and US not let hamas have what they say they want? I say, lets have an international agreement where all countries accept that this is what they want, and therefore, go do it. May the best side win.
The extremists on both sides are constantly trying to prevent any kind of peace deal , fearing that their organizations become irrelevant.Sooner or later there will be another war , this time full scale ! It's about time to realize that the problem can't be solved militarily, the only alternative is a honest fair peace treaty with the Palestinians .DON'T LET THE WAR MONGERS TAKE OVER !
Little,immature boys playing a dangerous game ,you had better stop before you get hurt ,
The size of the demonstration is a true measure of netanyahu's success. The more the diplomatic approach of Abbas fails, the more unified the Palestinians become that only force works with Israel. The next project for netanyahu: Convince the rest of the world that only strong pressure works with Israel.
Sarah Palin is only good at repeating in public what others tell her to say. A vote for Palin is a vote to continue the status quo. Anthony likes the status quo. Yes?
The only effective weapon those Islamic Jihad have now is their "tongue" ! So, my guess is the best response from Israel is to wipe out their "tongues"
I understand their pain and sympathize with their plight. It make their hatred and savagery really understandable.
Yes, Islamic Jihad, keep on dreaming because your dreamland is the only place where Israel will be wiped out of existence. Indeed, even you have the right to dream...
... but the smile is that of a woman. What's the deal, Max?
It's just about time for your curtain call, to tell us all how "Israel doesn't want peace, Israel is deathly afraid of peace, Netanyahu doesn't want peace, Israel's right wing population doesn't want peace, Lieberman doesn't want peace, Israel NEEDS a war", etc.,etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. My hunch is that you'll stay far away from an article like this one. You always do. I guess the least you can do is come out from under your rock to tell us how "Israel invented Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad". Idiot!!
still want to let "children from Gaza to the TA children festival " .Accompanied by grown ups from Gaza City ,and God forbid somebody tries to search them !
He's hanging out with Natallie Durson celebrating the liberation of Arizona by the Hezbollah financed narco-terorists http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39911585
Don’t you ever have anything nice to say Howard?
tired of reading of all these"Islamic nations" espousing death to Israel, USA,UK etc..... don't they have a day job, we here in Canada are becoming somewhat jaded by their "struggles" against every "infidel gov't" they are really starting to sound idiotic.
If Haaretz would be the mirror of the universe, the goal to have humanity crowing this slogan has been achieved to a formidable scale already. Leftists, progressives, jihadis, Arabs, Muslims... ignorants and anti-Semites are thinking it, saying it, writing it, and uniting in Islamic Jihad's rally. However, the Jewish people is indestructible, and that's not a slogan, but a historical fact for more than three millennia.
Why part of peace talks. The slogan they want is more within the Carter/Tutu beliefs
To you 2 stooges...please quote me anything from Carter or Tutu where either one of them supports the destruction, or dismantling, of Israel. When you find it, please post it. Until then, stop showing your stupidity. You are only aiding and abetting the Islamic enemy.
Also from our so-liberal friends on here. Why? Are you surprised by the murderous intent of Islamic Jihad? Do you pity these poor "victims" of "Israeli terror"? Do you realise that Christianity is next on their list?
So, these groups say they will destroy Israel. Then they puff themselves up enough to launch an attack against innocent Israelis. Israel is forced to respond. Then they cry "war crimes, war crime! The esrailis are committing war crimes." Then the UN makes Israel stop. Then they claim a "divine victory." LOL. Pathetic.
Fair enough if you target the leaders and financial capabilities of terrorist groups like Hamas and the IJ, but bombing 100,000 people?!?! I hate to say this but the Pal people have voted democratically for these messianic and evil individuals. Israel must withdraw from W.Bank and E.Jerusalem so public suport for these fascists plummets. More bombing means more sympathy for them, and that's detrimental to every peace-loving person.
gazans did not votye for Islamic jihad. They voted hamas to run Gazastan. Islamic Jiohad is but one of many terror interlopers that plyn their useless trade in death within teh gaza strip with the full approval and assitance of hamas as evidenced by this rally
Pulling out of E Jerusalem and the W Bank won't cause their support to plumment. To the contrary, it will SKYROCKET. The people who attended this rally presumably want to "whipe Israel out of existence," as their terrorist leader proclaimed, and not just get a few land concessions. It was never about the land. It is about us existing in the first place.
You know if this was an Al Qaeda rally, a US drone would be dropping a few bombs as a token of support.
Well Strictly Frank, now you're getting into our situation. What if Israel makes this huge bet, and instead of moderates gaining strength, we open a new frontier just like in Gaza and Southern Lebanon, and open all of Israel to daily missile attacks over it's major population centers and international airport? History taught us twice that this is more likely to occur. Now you're getting it.
Your delusional theory is flaud as giving more under threat invites more terror.. I say retake west bank and forcefully depopulate those areas.. By allowing well armed bunch of thugs next to your borders is not a good idea.. I say very and i emphasize very strong armed actions are necessary..to the point of west bank pals beg to stop..only then some kind of cool down on pals side will follow...It took atomic bomb for Japan to stop and it will take very strong military response for threats of annihilation of Israel and Israeli citizens...
then, it is okay for Hamas, Jihad ...et all to bomb every Israeli in the heart of tell aviv, after all they were either soldiers, reserve soldiers, voters that voted in MKs who support the murder of Palestinians..etc well, that does not mean the ISraelis did not do it, that had done it many times over in Lebanon and Gaza in the past 5 years killing and maiming over 10,000 civlians. I guess 100,000 makes your feroucious apetite for children's blood satisfied, Charles!!? shame on you
If it was Israel being actually being wiped off the map..... you'd hug your usurpers? http://wp.me/pDB7k-tM#who-is-being-wiped-off-the-map The Palestinians have demanded only their legal, legitimate rights for 62 years. Israel has legally demanded what is NOT Israeli for 62 years. Some Palestinians are sick of the 'peace loving' land grubbing Jewish State and it's preemptive wars and it's stinking occupation I'm sure you'd want rid of such a vile land loving neighbour, or would you just lay down and let them screw you over? It has always been Israel usurping the Palestinians, not the other way around. Time to wear your shoes the right way around and open the other eye.... for once
Guys there's no simple answer to this dilemma and you both present valid points- what if Israel takes the risk and the extremists are emboldened? But the question then is what if the status-quo is maintained, and what if Israel does indeed bomb these 100,000 people out of existence? This is the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb- such a preemptive strike would not be condoned by anyone, and would increase the hostility against Israel (and you cannot deny that). Plus 100,000 ppl may have come out in support of these lunatics (which is disgusting of the Pals to do) but there are 1.5 million ppl in Gaza and many hate Hamas. Why not give these ppl the excuse they need to revolt against Haniyeh and Zahar?
an Islamist terrorist aiming an AK-47 at the "gathering." That's one way to make the "citizens" follow orders and "root for the winning cause." Sounds like Obama's Black Panther supporters trying to control the Philly crowd last election
Idiot. Two Black panthers that no one supports yet the Klan kept thousands of blacks from voting for years. The people in Philly actually got to vote.
If no one supports the Black Panthers, why is Eric Holder so afraid to prosecute them for what is a federal crime? Only plausible explanation is that they represent (in all their violence laden foundation) a large portion of the Obama/Clinton electorate. How's it feel knowing that YOU are the idiot?
or thinking. I doubt that folk who've been dispossessed, sometimes twice, need any encouragement in voicing harsh opposition to the friendly peace loving perpetrator.
where were you Israel?