Weapons of the weak

A wave of attacks by Hamas in which 25 Israelis were killed has revived the controversy among Muslim scholars about the permissibility of such acts. Rasha Saad reports
Qatar-based Egyptian Muslim scholar Sheikh Youssef El-Qaradawi has taken issue with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi's condemnation of "any attack on innocent civilians."
Following the killing of 25 Israelis in Hamas operations last week, Tantawi said that Shari'a "rejects all attempts on human life. In the name of Shari'a we condemn all attacks on civilians, whether they were carried out by a state [Israel] or by other groups [militant Palestinian organisations.] "
El-Qaradawi, who is widely respected in the Muslim world and is known for his ties with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, immediately criticised Tantawi's argument and described the attacks carried out by militant Palestinian groups as "acts of martyrdom."
In a popular programme tackling Islamic issues that is aired by the Qatari satellite channel, Al-Jazeera, El-Qaradawi said Tantawi's fatwa, or edict, did not apply to Palestinians because they were the victims, not the aggressors. The majority of people calling in to the television programme supported his view.
"I am astonished about the fatwa and wish to discuss this issue with him [Tantawi] to urge him to reconsider it," El- Qaradawi told Al-Jazeera.
El-Qaradawi said that the Palestinians were defenceless in confronting an enemy with a sophisticated military arsenal and that the kind of attacks launched by Hamas "were their only weapon."
"The Palestinians are fighting a people who invaded their homeland and they have every right to defend themselves with any means at their disposal." He added that the Palestinians were in a "state of war," and claimed that what many Arabs and Muslims consider as "martyrdom attacks" were "effective because they frighten Israelis."
El-Qaradawi also said that terrorism was essential to the founding of the Israeli state, and that the country was created through "butchering and displacing them [Palestinians] to settle Jews from different parts of the world."
El-Qaradawi vehemently opposed Tantawi's assertion that the Hamas operations were launched against innocent civilians. "By their own admission, Israelis are a 'nation in arms.' In Israel, all men and women are soldiers. They are all occupying troops," El-Qaradawi said, referring to compulsory military service for all Israelis upon reaching the age of 18 and reserve duty for men through age 55.
El-Qaradawi also defended the Palestinian attacks as a response to the Israeli policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders. He said that Hamas's recent operations were a reaction to Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hannoud. Many Arab commentators suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had tried to provoke Hamas to launch an operation to derail US attempts to pressure Israel to resume peace talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
El-Qaradawi spoke out against attacks of the sort that occurred on 11 September, saying that they contravened Islamic teachings.
"There is a stark contrast between the two attacks [in Israel and the US]. The goal of those who carried out the first attacks [in Israel] was the liberation of their homeland and their means for the attacks was their own bodies. The attacks on the US had as their aim terrorising others and the means of those who carried out the acts were the bodies of others."
Tantawi of Al-Azhar was not the only renowned Muslim scholar to criticise Hamas's attacks last week. Sheikh Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al-Sabil, the imam of Islam's holiest mosque, the Al- Haram Al-Sharif Mosque in Mecca, said that Islam was totally against aggression on "people of the book," the term used in Islamic literature for Christians and Jews. "Those who try to harm unarmed civilians do not understand Shari'a," said Al-Sabil. Although Al-Sabil did not specifically mention the attacks in Israel, the timing of his statements made the connection clear for observers.
Other commentators in the Arab press criticised the timing of statements made by the government-appointed Tantawi and Al-Sabil as they coincided with the US campaign against Palestinian groups such as Hamas and the Lebanese group Hizbullah labelling them as terrorists. The Bush administration has also frozen the assets of several Islamic funds in the United States on the pretext that they have links to the groups in Palestine and Lebanon. Thus accusations were rife that the fatwas came as a result of American pressure on Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which enjoy friendly relations with the US, to denounce the attacks as terrorist.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, Palestinian editor- in-chief of Al-Quds newspaper, condemned the fatwas by Tantawi and Al- Sabil, charging that the scholars issued them under "explicit instructions by their governments who are intimidated by the US and will do anything to deny the charge of extremism or harbouring terrorists."
However, El-Qaradawi disagreed with the accusations levelled against Tantawi and Al-Sabil, saying he believed that the fatwas were an expression of personal opinions. "The fact that the Mufti of Egypt [Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel] issued a statement contradicting Tantawi is a clear signal that the statements were not dictated by the state, but an expression of the scholars' individual opinions."
Similar to El-Qaradawi's comments, Sheikh Wassel said in statements over the weekend that "the martyrdom operations that Palestinians have been carrying out are aimed at putting an end to injustice, defending Islam's holy sites and preserving the dignity of the Arab nation. Thus, they are legitimate." He added, "Jihad and the defence of the homeland and Islam's holy sites are a commitment that every Muslim honours more than ever in Palestine."
Wassel denounced the US's "double- standards" in its Middle East policy, saying that it had "transformed acts of resistance by Palestinians into acts of terrorism."
Palestinians are caught in the middle of such controversy. Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, a high-ranking official on the supreme Muslim council in Jerusalem, urged Muslim scholars to issue a collective fatwa on the matter rather than individual statements. "Muslim scholars have to study the matter from all sides and they should consider Palestinians as prisoners [of an occupation]."
Hussein told Al-Ahram Weekly that unless scholars take into consideration the fact that the Palestinian people are the victims of a vicious war and oppression, "their fatwas will be misleading."
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