[Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs-Hebrew] Jonathan D. Halevi - The ideology of the extreme Islamic movements deals with the concept of the Muslim's superiority over the nonbelievers and makes frequent use of the verse from the Koran that postulates that the Muslims are Allah's "chosen people." This ideology calls for a takeover of the entire world as both a vision and an action program and for the total extermination of Jews, Christians and other apostates by the Muslims. Dr. Yunus al-Astel, a senior member of the Hamas movement and a member of the Palestinian parliament, assigns religious doctrinal justification to this ruling of having the Muslims exterminate the Jewish people and views the terror attack on the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva (March 6, 2008) as partial implementation of the positive commandment bestowed by Allah. Al-Astel, who served as dean of the faculty for Muslim Sharia law at the Islamic University in Gaza, concludes that the punishment of extermination, immolation and holocaust will be meted out to the Jews, not only in the world to come but in this world as well, at the hands of the jihad fighters. This is not an isolated opinion within Hamas, and serves as a reply to those who detect signs of "flexibility" in Hamas' ideological platform.
2008-03-17 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive