According to Palestinian Media Watch, “One of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ top aides, his Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, still celebrates Hamas’ massacre and slaughter of over 1,100 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 as “legitimate resistance.””
By Rachel Avraham
According to Palestinian Media Watch, “One of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ top aides, his Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, still celebrates Hamas’ massacre and slaughter of over 1,100 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 as “legitimate resistance.” To be sure he is not misunderstood, he uses the word “legitimate” five times in reference to the Oct. 7 massacre. Al-Habbash then adds that the only problem with Oct. 7 is the “catastrophic consequences” of 60,000 killed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which makes “what Hamas carried out illegitimate”:”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash recently proclaimed, “What happened on Oct. 7, [2023,] what Hamas carried out on Oct. 7 (i.e., Hamas’ massacre and atrocities), I start from the assumption that resistance is legitimate. We agreed from the start that the resistance is legitimate, and no one can dispute the legitimacy of the resistance… What happened on Oct. 7 is a legitimate thing, okay?”
Newsweek compared what Hamas did on October 7 to ISIS, declaring that there was footage of “women abducted with their babies, grandmothers taken hostage and paraded down the streets of Gaza. According to one survivor, ‘They came to slaughter, to destroy. I know they kidnapped girls. They raped women even after killing them.’ Another survivor tells of returning to the site later to look for his friends and seeing mostly bodies of young women, lying cold and mutilated. Another widely shared video showed a young woman’s nearly naked body, lifeless and mutilated, being paraded through the streets of Gaza in the back of a pickup truck. Palestinian men sat on her, draped their legs over her, pulled at her hair and spit on her, a broken female body brandished like a trophy. Then, there’s a video of a teenage Israeli woman being pulled by terrorists from the back of a vehicle in Gaza. In the video, she is barefoot, wearing sweat pants and a tee-shirt, and as she turns, you can see the back of her sweatpants are covered in blood that came from between her legs.”
Despite the widespread evidence of mass rapes, genital mutilation, the burning alive of entire families, and the abduction and murder of grandparents, mothers, fathers and even small children, even babies who did not live long enough to outgrow diapers, Al Habbash still considers October 7th “legitimate resistance.” He argued this, even though Sheikh Muhammed Bin Abdallah as-Sabil, member of the Saudi Council of Senior Ulema, ruled in a fatwa: “Any attack on innocent people is unlawful and contrary to the Sharia. Muslims must safeguard the lives, honor, and property of Jews and Christians; attacking them contradicts the Sharia.”
Al Habbash apparently rejects this fatwa put out by the Saudi Council of Senior Ulema, but then explained where he and Fatah differs from Hamas: “It’s legitimate, but its consequences? …60,000 people were killed, 150,000 were wounded, and 90% of the Gaza Strip was destroyed. This makes the thing illegitimate. Therefore, what Hamas carried out in terms of its consequences is illegitimate because it led to catastrophic consequences.”
Palestinian Media Watch then noted, “This terror support echoes past statements by PA Chairman Abbas himself explaining that the reason the PA has not renewed violent conflict with Israel since the Second Intifada (the PA’s terror campaign 2000-2005) was not because Abbas opposes violence, but because the Palestinians were not prepared militarily and because a war would heavily damage the infrastructure of the Palestinian areas.”
As PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told the PA Daily Al Ayyam, “”We tried the [second] Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered) in 2000, and it destroyed everything that we had built. If the Arabs would want to fight, we’d be the first to fight. I told them at the [Arab] Summit in Sirt [Libya]: ‘If you want war, take the lead.’ It’s not possible for us [Palestinians] to go ahead alone; they must be first, with us behind them.”
Palestinian Media Watch added, “Similarly to Al-Habbash, a spokesman of Abbas’ party Fatah, Iyad Abu Zneit, stated that “if Oct. 7 hadn’t happened,” the Gaza Strip would not have been destroyed. He did not blame Hamas, though. Rather, he blamed Israel, claiming that Israel “is always waiting for [Palestinian] mistakes.” The PA has never expressed criticism of the terror and atrocities of Oct 7. It has only criticized Hamas for the destruction it has brought in its wake.”
Photo from Palestinian Media Watch: https://palwatch.org/page/37064.
