In Farewell Speech, Hamas Interior Minister Calls on Fatah to Join Jihad (VIDEO)
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by Joshua Levitt
Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad on June 2, 2014. Photo: MEMRI / Al Aqsa TV.
Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad last week addressed Fatah members with a call to join Hamas in waging Jihad against Israel.
In his farewell speech, broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV, following the establishment of the Fatah-run Palestinian unity government, Hammad said that “the whistling of bullets, the sound of bombs and missiles exploding for the sake of Allah, and the capture of [Israeli] soldiers” was “music to our ears,” according to a translation released on Wednesday by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Hammad, speaking in front of hundreds of Palestinian leaders and party members, said, “This land is mentioned in the Quran 64 times. We are the people of the Quran. Anyone who lives in Palestine must be from among the people of the Quran, not the people of security cooperation [with Israel].”
He ridiculed PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, even doing a dance on stage to portray the Fatah leader as a slippery politician rather than a “real” man ready for Jihad.
He said, “Whenever [Abbas] returns from abroad, he begins to play his games: ‘I can’t do it,’ ‘The situation is very difficult,’ Enough with that!”
Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad on June 2, 2014. Photo: MEMRI / Al Aqsa TV.
“This is no time to back down,” Hammad said. “This is a time to be real men, a time for determination, a time for Jihad, a time for resolution, a time to make sacrifices for the sake of Allah.”
“We are not moved by the beat of drums or by the clapping of hands,” he said. “What moves us is the whistling of bullets, the sound of bombs and missiles exploding for the sake of Allah, and the capture of [Israeli] soldiers in order to swap them with our prisoners. That is what moves us. This is music to our ears. This is our anthem, our songs.
The audience responded, “Allah Akbar, all praise be to Allah.”
He concluded the speech with a direct plea for Fatah to take up Hamas’s Jihad:
“I would like to address our Palestinian brothers in Fatah, and say: come join us. Return to your religion, to your homeland, to your Jihad. We are up to the task. It is us to whom you should turn. Do not turn to the Americans, to the Zionists, to the hypocrites, or to [your] feeble leadership, which has sold out… Turn to us, the group that wages Jihad for the sake of Allah.”
