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Abbas’ Advisor Prays for America to Be Punished, While Abbas Begs US for More Money
The United States continues to be the most important international force advocating for Gaza to be handed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) after Hamas is defeated. Despite this, the PA continues to demonize the US as if it were its worst enemy — yet at the same time, begs the US for money.
In a recent tirade against the US, the most important religious figure in the PA, Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs, defined America as the most evil force in the world, endangering all of humanity:
“[America] Satan of the period, the devil of the period, Antichrist of the generation, the plague of the generation.”
[Official PA TV Live, Feb. 9, 2024]
The PA religious leader further accused the United States of going to war against Islam by trying to impose Western liberal values, including acceptance of homosexuals, on the Palestinian Authority:
America, which is fighting today — not only against the Palestinian people — it is fighting against Islam … I swear by Allah, this war is a war on religion, a war on Islam. They want us to adopt their morality and describe ourselves in their terms, the inferior and lowly terms and characteristics [such as] homosexuals, nudity, fraud, and [financial] interest.
[Official PA TV Live, Feb. 9, 2024]
While it is known that the PA emphatically rejects many liberal Western values and rejects accepting homosexuals in society, this topic has not been an issue lately. This demonization of the US by the PA’s top religious figure has nothing to do with any current American policy, but uses Islamic teachings to prove that America in its essence is evil.
In a subsequent sermon, Abbas’ advisor cursed the US, and said that Allah should punish the US with pain either by Allah’s hands, or by the Palestinians:
The Pharaoh of this period, America … just as He [Allah] punished the wicked in the past, so He will punish the wicked of this period. He will punish the Pharaoh of this age [America], the criminals of this age, sooner or later … by our hands or by His punishment. By our hands, or by pain from Him. [emphasis added]
[Facebook of Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Feb. 23, 2024]
Abbas’ advisor is telling Palestinians that if they attack Americans, they will be inflicting Allah’s punishment on America that the US deserves.
Incredibly, at the same time, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas feels no shame in turning to the US to beg for aid money:
The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, today [Thursday] received the Director of USAID, Samantha Power … His Excellency noted the role that the American agency can play when it comes to providing aid to the Palestinian people, especially in the difficult circumstances resulting from continued Israeli aggression, in particular in the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that it is important to increase the amount of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, including the north of the Gaza Strip, and it is important to renew the American aid programs in the West Bank and Gaza in the fields of infrastructure, health, education, energy, and revitalization of the Palestinian economy.
[Wafa, official PA news agency, Feb 29, 2024]
While it may seem surprising that the PA is “biting the hand that feeds it,” by insulting and cursing America as the “plague of the generation,” this is nothing new.
The PA has demonized the US under all administrations, Republicans and Democrats, and they continue to do so because the PA has learned that the US will continue to support the PA’s political aspirations and supply the PA with financial aid, regardless of its behavior. The PA rewards terrorists, names schools after terrorist mass murderers of children, pays monthly stipends to families of suicide bombers, glorifies murderers of civilians as heroes and role models, and presents the extermination of Jews as an Islamic goal. And despite this, the US has never defined the PA as the terror entity that it is, and the US has never stopped funding the PA.
The PA has been demonizing and calling for Allah to punish America for years, and now joins Iran in defining the US as Satan, yet the PA has nothing to fear. The PA has learned that it can strike out at America as often as it wants, and America will always be there supporting it.
Itamar Marcus, Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Abbas’ Advisor Prays for America to Be Punished, While Abbas Begs US for More Money first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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