An imam at a mosque in Kfar Kara (an Arab city 22 miles southeast of Haifa) has been murdered by his fellow Arabs, marking the second shooting incident in Kfar Kara in under 24 hours, and the 166th murder in the Arab sector since the start of the year.
Guess who Hamas is blaming.
Head of the political bureau of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has held Israel responsible for a wave of murders engulfing the Arab community of the occupied territories.
In a statement released on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh pointed the finger at the Tel Aviv regime and its spy agencies for the escalation of violence among Arabs in the occupied lands.
“We hold the Zionist occupation responsible for the blood and the murders running wild inside the lands of 1948,” he said.
“The security arms of the Zionist enemy play a dangerous role that aims to engage our people in another struggle to forget their religious and historical ties to the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, and in exile.”
Haniyeh also called on Palestinian intellectuals and people to focus their efforts on the Palestinian cause.
He further underlined the need for an integrated strategy to end the murders, warning that the continuation of such a bloody path only serves the occupation.
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Hamas spokesman for the city of al-Quds, Muhammad Hamada, said criminal gangs, organized by Israel’s so-called internal security service Shin Bet, commit such crimes in a bid to weaken the Palestinian society and create sedition and security chaos.
In the face of dangerous Israeli plots, the Palestinian community in the occupied territories should exercise vigilance in an attempt to protect its national identity and defend the holy al-Aqsa Mosque, he added.
Note how Hamas spokeshit Hamada alleges the Arab criminal gangs are actually Shin Bet operatives. He really should be coordinating the messaging with other Israel-haters:
Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in 1948-occupied Palestine, commenting on the ongoing crime wave in the Arab sector:
“The official Israeli institution is not incapable or reluctant to curb violence in our Palestinian society, but it adopts a policy of reluctance and a policy of incapacity. This reluctance has become an official Israeli government policy.”
For the record, Israel has been trying to curb the violence:
It appears that there are numerous causes for the dramatic spike in the number of homicides and the heightened crime and violence. Ironically, among them is the pressure exerted in 2022 on the crime families by effective coercive measures of law enforcement agencies, as part of the “Secure Track” emergency plan. Consequently, splits emerged within the crime families, which in turn led to internal violent rivalries. In addition, the greater availability of firearms in Arab society, due to an influx of smuggled arms and ammunition from Jordan and the West Bank, has increased the scale of murders.
In other words, those responsible for the violence within Israeli Arab society are those engaging in the violence, as well as those enabling it i.e. Israeli Arabs and palestinian Arabs.
What Hamas is doing is engaging in the bigotry of low expectations, stripping Arabs of their own agency, instead blaming their bad behavior on the Jewish boogeyman.
