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Gaza Islamic Leader Criticizes Hamas for Consequences of War — But Not for Atrocities During October 7 Attack
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
Last week, the BBC published an article about an Islamic leader’s response to the Gaza war, which opened with the misleading headline: “Gaza’s top Islamic scholar issues fatwa criticizing 7 October attack.” It then continued to highlight his criticism of Hamas and the religious leaders prominence in Gaza, but never mentioning that he only criticized the devastating impact that the war had on Palestinians. His fatwa did not have one word of criticism of the rape, burning alive, and massacre of Israeli civilians.
This approach follows the Palestinian Authority’s policy that Palestinian Media Watch has reported on repeatedly, to defend and justify the Oct. 7 atrocities while criticizing Hamas for the destruction in Gaza.
The implication of the BBC headline, on the other hand, and opening paragraphs of the BBC article is clearly that he was criticizing what happened on Oct 7:
“The most prominent Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a rare, powerful fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the devastating war in the Palestinian territory… Dr Dayah’s fatwa, which was published in a detailed six-page document, criticises Hamas for what he calls ‘violating Islamic principles governing jihad’… Dr Dayah adds: ‘If the pillars, causes, or conditions of jihad are not met, it must be avoided in order to avoid destroying people’s lives. This is something that is easy to guess for our country’s politicians, so the attack must have been avoided.’ For Hamas, the fatwa represents an embarrassing and potentially damaging critique, particularly as the group often justifies its attacks on Israel through religious arguments to garner support from Arab and Muslim communities.”
The BBC quoted al-Dayeh that Jihad requires “to avoid destroying people’s lives,” and since the BBC wrote that he was “criticizing 7 October attack,” the implication is that he was critical of Israel’s civilian deaths.
The fatwa by Islamic scholar Salman al-Dayeh, has six parts, each critical of a statement made by a senior Hamas figure regarding the war in Gaza. The fatwa states that Hamas did not fulfill the conditions of jihad because it did not take into consideration the disastrous impact on civilian Palestinians.
The conditions for waging jihad, he writes, include waging the war far away from Muslim civilians and ensuring that they have enough food and water for the duration of the war:
The jihad must be “far from [the Muslim] population centers and safe shelter away from inhabited houses, populated towers, crowded schools, busy hospitals… and to store provisions that will last them longer than what opinion holders and advisors expect regarding the war.”
[Salman Daya, Facebook page]
He also insists that based on the “war people,” i.e., Israel’s past responses to Palestinian’s lesser attacks from Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas should have anticipated this counterattack and should not have attacked:
“This [the counterattack] is something that politicians and leaders in our country can easily assess if they examine the aggression of the war people [=Israelis] on the West Bank and Gaza in previous confrontations, which were much lighter than what happened on October 7th, and [Palestinians] were met with many martyrs and wounded, the explosion of houses and towers, the uprooting of people for days and months to schools and hospitals…. If the response of the war-people [Israelis, in the past] was causing severe damage for much more minor reasons than what happened on October 7th, this causes any rational person to understand that the extent of damage from their response in the case of a larger event than before would be many times greater.”
The Oct. 7 attack was a total failure because none of the jihad goals were achieved:
“None of the goals behind provoking the enemy, angering it and stirring up war with it, which the resistance [Hamas] declared at the time, were achieved.”
Moreover, Hamas’ goals were not realistic in the first place:
“When it is likely that the goals of jihad will not be achieved… it should be avoided.”
Finaly, the fatwa author criticizes Hamas for its self-satisfied attitude that implies victory but totally ignores the reality of its defeat and the destruction it caused:
“I see that [Hamas’] motivation is high, that faces are glowing, that cheeks are flushed, and that the tone of speech indicates satisfaction and contentment. This appears like the joy of a victor, over a victory that achieved security and peace for your people in their life domains, that freed the prisoners, that separated them from their enemy, and that put an end to injustice at Al-Aqsa Mosque. While the opposite is true: your entire people have become sick in soul or body, disabled, mentally impaired, sad at heart… This is in addition to frightening numbers of martyrs and amputees, widows and orphans. This is such a tragedy that even if the war ends tonight, its suffering will continue for decades.“
Later in its article, the BBC does point out his criticism of Hamas for the suffering of Palestinians:
“Al-Dayeh argues that the significant civilian casualties in Gaza, together with the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and humanitarian disaster that have followed the 7 October attack, means that it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Islam.
Hamas, he says, has failed in its obligations of “keeping fighters away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians and their shelters, and providing security and safety as much as possible in the various aspects of life… security, economic, health, and education, and saving enough supplies for them.”
Nowhere, however, does the BBC mention that the fatwa author does not have any criticism of the October 7 atrocities against Israelis, which was the overt message of its headline and opening sentence: “Gaza’s top Islamic scholar issues fatwa criticizing 7 October attack. The most prominent Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a rare, powerful fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel…”
Much has been written and publicized accusing the BBC of significant misrepresentation and anti-Israel bias. Headlining an article to give the readers the impression that the Oct. 7 atrocities were criticized by a leading Gazan religious figure can now be added to that list.
Nonetheless, the fatwa is very significant as it shows that even today after all the atrocities are well known, when a top Gazan religious figure criticizes Hamas, he is not critical of the murder and rape of Israelis.
The following is the screenshot of the BBC article:
Itamar Marcus is Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Gaza Islamic Leader Criticizes Hamas for Consequences of War — But Not for Atrocities During October 7 Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada
Vancouver police arrested and released one person at the home of Charlotte Kates, director of the terror group Samidoun, in a dramatic raid on Nov. 14. The raid was conducted […]
The post Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President-elect Donald Trump won an overwhelming majority of the votes in New York City (NYC) precincts that were at least a quarter Jewish, according to a data analysis by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington DC-based political group.
RJC presented data on Friday affirming the notion that Trump won a higher proportion of the NYC Jewish vote than in previous elections, potentially signaling an ideological shift in the traditionally-liberal voting bloc. According to RJC data, Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25%.
Trump’s 2024 performance among Jews in NYC seems to mark a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections, contests in which the president-elect struggled to make inroads among Jewish voters.
Voting data from the 2024 election also indicate that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. President-elect Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily-Jewish enclaves of deep-blue cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
Trump’s increased success among Jewish voters in the Big Apple comes amid simmering anger over surging antisemitism across the country.
In the year following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, college campuses have become embroiled in an unrelenting onslaught of protests opposing the Jewish state. Moreover, many Jews have expressed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting that the president has not been a firm ally of the Jewish state.
Over the past year, NYC has been ravaged with raucous, often-violent anti-Israel demonstrations and an unrelenting spate of antisemitic hate crimes.
Columbia University, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, became a poster-child for the anti-Israel campus movement, erecting encampments and holding protests calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Many NYC public schools came embroiled in scandal after teachers presented students with lesson plans that accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Though most national Democrats continue to express support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists, some figures in the party have, over the past year, adopted a more adversarial posture toward the Jewish state, often citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a key reason.
High-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) have suggested that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military campaign targeting terrorists since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Earlier this year, a group of dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, urging him to “reconsider” approving offensive arms shipments to Israel.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them once he retains office in January.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
The post Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge
Screenshot of masked men who attempted to rob Jewish man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thursday. Photo: Screenshot
The Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was the target of another attack on Thursday evening, as three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood.
Footage of the incident was shared on X/Twitter by Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit. It shows the men, whose faces were concealed by hoods and ski masks, chasing the man into the street and through the neighborhood after attempting to accost him.
No arrests have been made.
“He doesn’t give in easily, and I don’t think they got anything,” Behrman tweeted. “The Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
The explosion of an antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has set the Orthodox Jewish community on edge in recent weeks.
Last Tuesday, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. According to multiple accounts, the assailants were two Black teenagers.
That incident was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. Before then, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Most recently, a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. Police later identified the man as Stephan Stowe, 28 — a suspect gang member with an extensive criminal history which includes 33 prior arrests — and charged arrested him attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.
In each case, the suspect was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge first appeared on Algemeiner.com.