Palestinian media has reported on the visit to Gaza by UK Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas figure Azzam Tamimi. According to a translated summary of two Alresalah articles provided to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, Dr. Tamimi says the West refuses to deal with Hamas because most countries are “controlled by the Zionist Lobby”:
Azzam Tamimi
On 12 May 2013, a delegation of 30 Islamist thinkers arrived in Gaza to take part in the ‘United for the Right of Return’ conference organised by Hamas’s refugee affairs bureau. The most senior figures were Ali Baraka, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, and Dr. Azzam Tamimi, from the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London.
In an interview on 13 May 2013, Azzam Tamimi spoke about the ways in which Hamas is treated by the West. Tamimi said that the West refuses to deal with Hamas “out of fear from the Zionist lobby which controls most of its countries”, emphasizing that the West will not be able to leave the Islamic Movement behind. Azzam Tamimi maintained that western politicians were foolish for placing Hamas on the terror list; that they are now trying to amend the mistake; and that contacts are conducted by the Islamic Movement for this purpose. Azzam Tamimi described the work of the Zionist lobby in western countries as “extremely aggressive”, adding that it has lots of resources, power, funds and political support in parliaments and western governments. Azzam Tamimi argued that “the lobby there addresses people in an easy manner to the extent that Arabs are presented as strangers to western societies”, calling on the Palestinians to speak in the same way in which the [Zionist] lobby succeeded in infiltrating the heart of Europe.
Azzam Tamimi acknowledged that the Palestinian problem has a large presence in the heart of Europe, “at a time in which it is completely absent, due to the actions of the Zionist media”. Azzam Tamimi placed the responsibility of sending a positive message to the West and illuminate the truth of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the shoulders of the Arab elite. He remarked that “Israel in an aggressive colonialist project, and it is necessary that we intensify our capabilities and efforts to take it down, expose its reality and crimes against the Palestinian people, who are currently commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Nakba.
Azzam Tamimi further predicted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will soon collapse, and said that the current era, as well as developments in the Arab world, are not beneficial for Israel and its allies. Azzam Tamimi did not rule out the possibility that the fighting in Syria may spread to its Arab neighbours, due to the Iranian and Russian assistance for the Assad regime.
According to a 1998 article on Dr. Azzam Tamimi, he was born in 1955 and he was seven when his family moved from Hebron to Kuwait. After high school graduation, he moved to England and the University of Westminster, London. First studying pure science, he changed to politics, earning a Ph.D., with a thesis on “Islam and Democracy.”? Later in Jordan, he organized and was administrator of offices designed to assist the 26 Islamists who won parliamentary seats in a 1989 election. An online bio adds that from September 2000 to 30 March 2004, he worked as a senior lecturer at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education in Leicestershire, a center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood. He was visiting professor at Kyoto University in Japan from March to September 2004 and visiting professor at Nagoya University also in Japan from December 2005 to March 2006. 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 UK.
Dr. Tamimi 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 and other important individuals from the Global Muslim Brotherhood. 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.” During a 2012 speaking appearance at the Queen Mary University Palestine Solidarity Society , Dr. Tamimi reiterated his close ties to Hamas and his willingness to become a “martyr” if he had the opportunity.
