The Middle East Now

The incoming Hamas government will move quickly to make Islamic sharia “a source” of law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and will overhaul the Palestinian education system to separate boys and girls and introduce a more Islamic curriculum, a senior official in the movement said yesterday.

Spelling out the domestic agenda of Hamas for the first time since the group’s stunning victory in a legislative election this week, Sheik Mohammed Abu Teir also said Hamas would not go to foreign donors on bended knee if they withdrew aid to the Palestinian Authority.

The armed struggle against Israel will continue as long as Israel continues its occupation of Palestinian lands, he added.

Israel, the West and many Palestinians have expressed concern at what Hamas — considered a terrorist organization by Canada and the United States, among others — might do in power.

Mr. Abu Teir, who was No. 2 on the Hamas list of candidates for Wednesday’s election, said introducing sharia — a controversial moral and legal code based on the Koran — would be the first act of the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council.

“The No. 1 thing we will do is take sharia as a source for legislation. Sharia has a soul in it and is good for all occasions,” Mr. Abu Teir said in an interview with The Globe and Mail over a lunch of traditional Palestinian dishes supplemented with Coca-Cola. The table was set under photographs of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, past Hamas leaders who were assassinated in Israeli air strikes.

The current Palestinian legal system is based on Western-style jurisprudence and a hodgepodge of Jordanian, Egyptian and Ottoman laws.

It’s questionable whether Hamas could push through legislation introducing sharia as the basic law, since any such bill would have to be signed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a social moderate.

However, having won 76 of the 132 legislative seats in what observers billed the best-run election the Arab world has seen, Hamas — which campaigned on the slogan “Islam is the solution” — can argue that it has more popular support for its program than Mr. Abbas does for his.

Mr. Abu Teir, once a member of the secular Fatah movement, spent 25 years in Israeli jails, where he converted to Islam and emerged as a leader respected by his fellow prisoners.

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Two Palestinians opted not to kidnap the US couple Craig and Cindy Corrie from the Rafah refugee camp Wednesday, upon learning that their daughter Rachel was killed in 2003 as she tried to stop an IDF bulldozer from razing the home of pharmacist Samir Nasrallah.

Nasrallah, who was hosting the Corries in his home, told The Jerusalem Post by telephone that the two men, one of whom had a gun, knocked on his door Wednesday morning and asked if he had internationals in his home.

“I said, ‘yes,’ but that this is the father and mother of Rachel Corrie,” he said. At no time during the exchange was he frightened, nor was he even sure that the gun was loaded, Nasrallah said.

The men came in the house and he sent his wife to wake up the Corries. The couple had arrived the day before for an overnight visit, and were still sleeping.

Craig Corrie told the Post he was still wearing his pajamas when he walked into the living room and saw the men talking with Nasrallah.

The gun “had a big clip” and the man had it “pointed at the ground between his legs while they were talking,” said Craig. They were introduced and shook hands.

“They were saying that they felt we would be safer at their house and we said we felt safe where we are,” said Craig.

Since he doesn’t know Arabic, portions of the conversation were translated for him.

“We declined,” he said adding that, “there was never a threat made against us and the gun was never pointed at anyone.” He said that when he entered the room and saw the man with the gun, he feared it might be a kidnapping attempt, but that the situation was never described to him that way by his host. Corrie added that the media accounts made it sound much more dramatic than it felt during the incident.

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On Wednesday October 26, 2005 Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made the following comments in an anti-Isrel rally:

There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world.
Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury, (while) any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.
“The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,”

See the full translation of Ahmadinjed’s speech here

see: Was Ahadinejad Misquoted?

These words from the Iranian president are a direct threat to the state of Israel, especially from a country trying to obtain nuclear weapons. In a rare show of support, the international community (including France, and even Palestinian officials) condemned Iran for calling for Israel’s destruction.

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