Hamam Said, general supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan
Al-Aqsa TV, December 5
Hassan Abdallah
Usama Hamdan
Hamam Said, general supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, at a march
to express solidarity with the Gazans: "…Murder [the Jews] in Palestine…
Throw them out of Palestine…” (Al-Aqsa TV, December 5).
Overview
1. As part of its campaign to enlist Arab-Muslim support for the Gaza Strip, Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV recently broadcast vicious anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic propaganda and incitement. The statements in question were made by radical Islamic figures from Jordan and Lebanon , and by a Hamas representative in Lebanon . They included a call for the slaughter of the Jews in Hebron , the murder of Jews in " Palestine ” [i.e., Israel ], suicide bombing attacks and the destruction of the State of Israel. They also exhorted the Egyptians to use violence to aid the Palestinians "even if it mean[t] jail or death”.
2. Recently, serious differences of opinion surfaced between Egypt on one hand and Hamas and Iran on the other . Egypt has repeatedly accused Hamas of sabotaging the internal Palestinian dialogue and of preventing pilgrims for leaving the Gaza Strip for Mecca , claiming that Hamas was a tool in the hands of the Iranian regime’s policy. That has led Egypt to wage a media campaign against Hamas, while Hamas has been trying to rouse the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian street to rise up against the regime. "An official Egyptian source” told an Al-Hayat correspondent that Egypt had noticed that Hamas was coordinating with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other countries. That was aimed, according to the source, at exerting pressure on Cairo by taking actions such as demonstrating in front of Egyptian embassies in European and Arab capitals with the slogan "lift the siege of the Gaza Strip.” The same source noted that the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations recently held in Egypt were part of that program 1 (Al-Hayat, December 8).
3. The propaganda and incitement broadcast by Hamas and Hezbollah’s television channels reach a wide Arab-Muslim population not only in Israel and the Middle East , but throughout the entire world . Al-Aqsa and Al-Manar’s broadcasts are relayed by the Arab satellite companies Arabsat (most of whose stocks are owned by Saudi Arabians), Nilesat (a company owned by Egypt , which is attacked by its broadcasts ), and Palapa C-2 , an Indonesian satellite. Hamas and Hezbollah are usually careful in their references to the Egyptian regime, which enables their continued broadcasts over Nilesat, and the recent propaganda and incitement broadcast by Al-Manar TV was clearly extraordinary.
Speech by Muslim Brotherhood leader in Jordan
4. On December 5 Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV broadcast a speech by Sheikh Hamam Said, the general supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan . Hamam Said, a Palestinian by extraction, was chosen to head the movement in Jordan in May 2008. He belongs to the organization’s hawkish faction and represented it in the Jordanian parliament in 1989. He holds a doctorate in the sharia’ (Muslim religious law) and lectured at universities in Jordan for many years (Al-Jazeera TV website, May 1, 2008 ). On December 5, during a march to express the Muslim Brotherhood’s solidarity with the residents of the Gaza Strip, he gave a speech in Amman to a large audience. It included the following:
i) He began, "Oh glorious Gaza , hold your head up high, [and by doing so you have] raised the head of [all] Muslims.” He referred to the most recent events in Hebron by saying, "You, residents of Hebron , today wage war against the Jews, and you have experience [in waging war against them]. We saw how in one day in 1929 you slaughtered the Jews of Hebron [the August 23, 1929 local Palestinian massacre of the Jews of Hebron, the Jews’ second most holy city]. Today, you have to slaughter them [again] on Hebron ‘s soil. Kill them in Palestine ! Throw them out of Palestine ! Do it to defend your Al-Aqsa [mosque], Nablus and Hebron .”
ii) To Mahmoud Abbas he said, "[Mahmoud] Abbas, remove your treacherous hands from the Palestinian people, do not ever send your preventive security forces to kill our brothers and confiscate their weapons…” He charged the Palestinian Authority’s security services to "go out against the preventive security [services], do not be afraid of them, they are rabbits, they are wolves, no do not be afraid of them, you are lions.” To the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip he said, " Gaza , send rockets and put an end to the lull , there is no lull with an enemy.”
iii) He also urged them to put an end to the diplomatic relations between Israel and Jordan . "Oh, young people, call upon the Jordanian government to throw the Israeli ambassador out of Amman , for Amman is pure, and it is out of the question for a Jewish ambassador to defile it [with his presence]! [Call upon the Jordanian government] to recall its ambassador from Palestine [i.e., Israel ] to Amman . Only jihad fighters ( mujahideen ) should be in Palestine , not ambassadors, ministers or representatives of [our] nation. Do not recognize the [Israeli] ambassador. Palestine is the soil of jihad and sacrifice.”
iv) He called upon the Jordanian people to put an end to normalized relations with Israel and to ban its merchandise. He called those who trade with Israel "collaborators” and "traitors,” adding that "[Muslim] clerics have determined that whoever trades with the Jews is a traitor and a collaborator.”
Left: Hamam Said, general supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan marching
to express solidarity with Gazans. Right: The march (Al-Aqsa TV, December 5).
Speech given by leader of the Association of Islamic Scholars in Lebanon
5. Hassan Abdallah , leader of the Association of Islamic Scholars in Lebanon , 2 expressed the organization’s support for the Gaza Strip residents at a meeting broadcast live by Al-Manar TV on December 3, 2008, saying the following: "In the name of the Association of Islamic Scholars in Lebanon, I say that this lull arrangement with the Zionist entity [i.e., Israel] has no significance, and the solution is to renew the resistance [i.e., terrorist attacks], this time more strongly and effectively. Pure [Palestinians] must once again blow themselves up in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and all the cities of occupied Palestine, because we live with an enemy who understands only the language of force. We say to the heroic Egyptian people, ‘Arise and destroy the artificial fences [between the Gaza Strip and Egypt ], bring food and medicine to your besieged brothers in Gaza .’ Today the Egyptian people are required to use violence, even if it means jail or death , because they will become shaheeds for the sake of Allah.”
Hassan Abdallah, Association of Islamic Scholars leader in Lebanon:
"Today the Egyptian people must use violence” (Al-Manar TV, December 3, courtesy of MEMRI).
Usama Hamdan, Hamas representative in Lebanon : Destroy the State of Israel
6. Usama Hamdan , Hamas representative in Lebanon , broadcasting live on Al-Manar TV in support of the residents of the Gaza Strip, said: "We [Hamas] want to liberate Palestine from the [ Jordan ] river to the [ Mediterranean ] sea, from Rosh Haniqra [in the north of Israel ] to Um El-Rashrash [i.e., Eilat , Israel ‘s southernmost city]. [We, the residents] of Gaza, gentlemen, are not interested in a state of 364 square kilometers, or a state for which we will have to beg on the negotiating table, which will never actually exist. We want a free, respected state of 27,000 square kilometers, that is, all of Palestine .”
Usama Hamdan, Hamas representative in Lebanon calls for the destruction of the State of Israel
(Al-Manar TV, December 3, courtesy of MEMRI).
1 For further information about Hamas’s anti-Egyptian campaign, see our December 9, 2008 Bulletin entitled "News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ( December 2-9, 2008 )” .
2 An organization of Shi’ite Muslim clerics of Khomeinist orientation who want rapprochement with Sunni clerics with the objective of joining forces.
