GAZA, 30 January 2003 — Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Hamas resistance group, said yesterday the United States was planning war on Iraq to perpetuate Israeli control of "the Palestinian homeland". US President George W. Bush raised the prospect of war with Iraq in a State of the Union speech on Tuesday in which he said Baghdad had scorned UN disarmament demands and "crucial hours may lie ahead" as US troops mass in the Gulf region.
"America is implementing Zionist Israeli policy to serve the Zionist project in Palestine," Yassin told Reuters at his Gaza Strip home. "The battle America is undertaking is designed to allow Israel to remain in the Palestinian homeland."
Hamas seeks Israel’s destruction, claiming all territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, whereas Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority says it wants a state in the West Bank and Gaza, lands Israel captured in the 1967 war.
Hamas, which views Washington —Israel’s guardian ally — as an enemy of Palestinian national aspirations, has been at the forefront of the 28-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israel and has killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings. The United States and European Union have Hamas on their lists of banned terrorist groups.
Yassin said Bush wanted to launch a "war of crusaders against Muslims that began in Afghanistan (after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington) and today in Iraq and tomorrow in another country."
He said a US offensive would reduce the threat to Israel from Iraq, which fired 39 Scud missiles at the Jewish state during the 1991 Gulf War and is said by Israeli officials to have funded Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns. "Zionist Israeli and Jewish policy is to strike every power emerging in the Arab and Muslim world because it would pose a danger to the existence of Israel on Muslim land," he said. "Therefore, they want to strip the Arab and Muslim world of any (real) power. Any country that develops power threatening to this entity (Israel), they want to smash it."
Yassin asked why Bush was ready for war with Iraq but not with North Korea, which has admitted having a nuclear weapons program. He complained that Israel’s reputed possession of nuclear weapons was not an issue internationally but Muslim states were not allowed such arms. "Only strong people can be respected."
Palestinians have held rallies in Gaza and the West Bank to show support for Iraq, holding up posters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who has sent millions of dollars to support the uprising.
Israel, which at Washington’s request did not retaliate for the Iraqi Scud missiles fired at it in the Gulf War to avoid alienating Arab support for the United States, strongly favors a US-led war to topple Saddam. (R)
