Official PA daily: Hamas accused a journalist of "high treason" because "she didn't write what they wanted"
Op-ed by Hafez Barghouti, former editor-in-chief of official PA daily
“In an earlier op-ed, I mentioned a publicist who writes her journal under fire, in a humane and apolitical way, without pushing her pen to vilify and attack. She talks about the life of a family under fire, about the street, the neighborhood, the wounded and the Martyrs (Shahids), about her sons and daughters. One day, her pen crossed the line. She wrote about a boy searching for food in the trash, and the knights (sarcastic reference to Hamas –Ed.) became enraged. They accused her of high treason, dishonored her and harassed her daughter with rumors, because she didn’t write what they wanted. She didn’t say she had seen angels descending from heaven and stopping the enemy. She didn’t say the Martyr-children of Gaza yearned for Martyrdom (Shahada) and hunted the enemy rockets so as to be engulfed by their shrapnel. She didn’t say the displaced – more than a third of Gaza’s residents – live in paradise, delighted at the destruction the occupation has granted them.
This is the reality experienced by all who call for stopping the aggression and preventing the bloodshed of innocent people.
Did we not hear [Secretary-General of Hezbollah] Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, speaking as the victor of the [2006] South Lebanon War, say after the war, ‘Had I known Israel’s response to the kidnapping of the three soldiers would be such devastation to Beirut and the villages of Lebanon, we wouldn’t have taken the soldiers captive’? And before him, did not Yasser Arafat say in Beirut, during its long siege and isolation from the world, ‘If it hadn’t been for the children and women in Beirut, we wouldn’t have left, but would have held on’?
But our brother, [head of the Political Bureau of Hamas] Khaled Mashaal, admitted several days ago that Hamas was behind the kidnapping of the three settlers (i.e., three Israeli teens), albeit without the knowledge of the political leadership, after having denied it for some time. He didn’t say, ‘had I known the kidnapping of the settlers would lead to the destruction of Gaza and to such a number and amount of Martyrs we would not have carried out the kidnapping.’ A [true] leader criticizes himself with humility and is not scared of admitting [his mistakes] – unless he considers himself faultless. But only the Prophet [Muhammad] was faultless.”
Note: On June 12, 2014, Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists while they were hitchhiking in the West Bank. The boys' bodies were found by Israeli security forces near Hebron on June 30, 2014. They appeared to have been shot to death soon after the abduction.
Note: This article was published on the day a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas, concluding the 2014 Gaza war.
“In an earlier op-ed, I mentioned a publicist who writes her journal under fire, in a humane and apolitical way, without pushing her pen to vilify and attack. She talks about the life of a family under fire, about the street, the neighborhood, the wounded and the Martyrs (Shahids), about her sons and daughters. One day, her pen crossed the line. She wrote about a boy searching for food in the trash, and the knights (sarcastic reference to Hamas –Ed.) became enraged. They accused her of high treason, dishonored her and harassed her daughter with rumors, because she didn’t write what they wanted. She didn’t say she had seen angels descending from heaven and stopping the enemy. She didn’t say the Martyr-children of Gaza yearned for Martyrdom (Shahada) and hunted the enemy rockets so as to be engulfed by their shrapnel. She didn’t say the displaced – more than a third of Gaza’s residents – live in paradise, delighted at the destruction the occupation has granted them.
This is the reality experienced by all who call for stopping the aggression and preventing the bloodshed of innocent people.
Did we not hear [Secretary-General of Hezbollah] Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, speaking as the victor of the [2006] South Lebanon War, say after the war, ‘Had I known Israel’s response to the kidnapping of the three soldiers would be such devastation to Beirut and the villages of Lebanon, we wouldn’t have taken the soldiers captive’? And before him, did not Yasser Arafat say in Beirut, during its long siege and isolation from the world, ‘If it hadn’t been for the children and women in Beirut, we wouldn’t have left, but would have held on’?
But our brother, [head of the Political Bureau of Hamas] Khaled Mashaal, admitted several days ago that Hamas was behind the kidnapping of the three settlers (i.e., three Israeli teens), albeit without the knowledge of the political leadership, after having denied it for some time. He didn’t say, ‘had I known the kidnapping of the settlers would lead to the destruction of Gaza and to such a number and amount of Martyrs we would not have carried out the kidnapping.’ A [true] leader criticizes himself with humility and is not scared of admitting [his mistakes] – unless he considers himself faultless. But only the Prophet [Muhammad] was faultless.”
Note: On June 12, 2014, Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists while they were hitchhiking in the West Bank. The boys' bodies were found by Israeli security forces near Hebron on June 30, 2014. They appeared to have been shot to death soon after the abduction.
Note: This article was published on the day a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas, concluding the 2014 Gaza war.