A Union of Good website is reporting that important Global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas leaders were among those attending a conference in the Gaza Strip titled “War on Gaza – Consequences and Future Prospects.” According to the report:
A number of research institutes and human rights organisations are attending a landmark conference in the Gaza Strip. The conference, which began on Saturday, is considering the ‘War on Gaza – Consequences and Future Prospects’. More than 300 specialists, researchers, strategists and political and military analysts from around the world are in the besieged Palestinian territory to attend the conference. Participants will examine the consequences of last November’s Israeli offensive against the civilians of the Gaza Strip, and consider the prospects of further attacks in the future. Expected conference outcomes include recommendations concerning any future confrontation between the Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces and how the people of Gaza are supposed to liaise with the outside world to enlist regional and international support. Among the prominent attendees are the Palestinian thinker Moneer Shafiq, Egyptian intellectual and journalist Fahmi Howaidi, and the Palestinian-British academic Azzam Tamimi, the head of the UK’s Institute of Islamic Political Thought. On the first day of the two-day programme, speakers addressed the unprecedented outcomes of the Israeli offensive against Gaza. They noted that during the war Israel faced a new Arab environment, which ‘completely’ supported the Palestinians and their resistance to the offensive. They stressed that a new strategic change has taken place in the region, of which Israel is very afraid. The head of the Middle East Studies Centre in Jordan, Jawad Al-Hamad said, ‘Thanks to the Palestinian resistance, the Gaza Strip is now a strategic location in the Middle East. The victory of the resistance in November pushed many sides to re-assess their approach to rebuilding Palestinian infrastructure.’ The head of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Salah Sultan, told the audience that it is important for all Arab countries to unify around a ‘firm’ position in opposition to the Israeli occupation. The head of Baheth Centre in Beirut said that the ‘Zionist project’ is in retreat, the proof of which is that the Israelis are targeting civilians and engaging in propaganda wars. Waleed Ali affirmed that the Palestinian liberation conflict is ‘not only military, but also political, environmental, cultural and historical’ in nature. ‘It is targeting Palestinian ideology, history, present and future.’
For more details on the conference, go here.
Azzam Tamimi is a Palestinian whose family moved to Kuwait when he was seven. He was a long time member of the Muslim Association of Britain but switched allegiance to the British Muslim Initiative, both organizations being part of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.K. He is the director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought (IPT), known to have had Georgetown University Professor John Esposito on its Advisory Board as well as global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi. Tamimi is the author of books on Hamas and has been interviewed by Hamas T.V. During a 2004 BBC interview, he said that sacrificing oneself as a suicide bomber in Israel was a “noble cause,” adding that it was “the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity.” In January of 2008 he told Iranian TV that “I want to see Israel come to an end.” A post from February 2012 discussed a speaking appearance by Tamimi at the Queen Mary University Palestine Solidarity Society where he reiterated his ties to Hamas and willingness to become a “martyr” if he had the opportunity. A post from March 2012 reported on an interview given by Tamimi on a Hamas-affiliated T.V. station in which he cautioned Arab TV channels to be careful about using the term Jews and to avoid denying the Holocaust because of “people who lie in wait.”
Dr. Salah Sultan (aka Solah Sultan, Sallah Sultan) had left the U.S. following negative press reports in the U.S. media about his extremist statements which led the authorities there to suspend his application for American citizenship and, as discussed in a previous post, relocated to Bahrain in 2007. Dr Sultan’s online CV, now removed from the Internet, indicates that he is or was a member of several important U.S. and European Muslim Brotherhood organizations including the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Fiqh Council of North America, and the Islamic American University, closely associated with the Muslim American Society (MAS).This resume also expressed Dr. Soltan’s vision “To live happily. To die as a martyr.” Some of Dr. Sultan’s most recent statements have been reported here:
- In August 2012, a post reported that Dr. Sultan had given two recent sermons on Al-Aqsa TV in which he said he has met people all over the world who “thirst for the blood of the Jews” and that Jews have entered Egypt in order to commit crimes including deliberately infecting Egyptian girls with AIDS.
- In August 2012, a post discussed demands by Sultan for violent actions against Israeli by Egyptians, this time issuing a fatwa (religious ruling) calling for the killing of the Israeli ambassador on Alzajeera TV.
- In March 2012, a post reported that Dr. Sultan had cited the notorious anti-Semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as predicting the end of Israel and the United States.
- In February 2012 a post reported that Dr. Sultan had called for young people to practice sports in order to prepare themselves for Jihad to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
- A post from August 2011 reported that Sultan had said it is permissible for any Egyptian to kill a Zionist met on Egyptian territory.
- In April 2010, a post reported that Dr. Sultan had accused Jews of using Christian blood for Matzoh (substitute for bread used during the Jewish holiday of Passover) in an example of what is called “blood libel”, the accusations that Jews use human blood in religious rituals. (Historically these are accusations that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted and date back to the 1st Century .