The Palestinian ambassador to the U.K. has likened Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons to the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7: “PLO official equates released Palestinian teen terrorists with Israeli child hostages,” by Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch,
Husam Zomlot: “I’ll tell you what’s the difference. I’ll really tell you what’s the difference. The difference is the first is done by individuals (sic., by Hamas), but the second is done by a state, by a state that sponsored an army… It is disgraceful to even draw any equity between a state that is a member of the UN, that is Israel and its responsibility under international law, and between individuals (sic., Hamas), so in fact the lack of equity is to focus on ‘responsible’ – between parentheses – actors, that they should perform in full accordance of international law.”
[CNN Arabic, X (Twitter) account, Nov. 25, 2023]
Asked about Israel’s definition of the released prisoners as “terrorists,” Zomlot responded that for Israel “every Palestinian is a terrorist” and every person siding with “Palestine” is too:
Do the Israeli police, or the IDF, shoot indiscriminately at Palestinians because, according to Zomlot, those monstrous Israelis think that “every Palestinian is a terrorist”? No, they do not. They do arrest those who are caught in the act of preparing, or attempting, or managing to pull off, acts of terror, such as stabbing or shooting Israeli civilians as they walk in the Old City, or ramming IDF soldiers with cars at checkpoints.
Sky News interviewer: “The Israelis say that some of the people, some of the women and children in that group, are terrorists. How do you react and respond to that?”
Husam Zomlot: “Well, for the Israelis every Palestinian is a terrorist. For the Israelis every human being who supports our rights, everybody who calls for the end of the occupation is an antisemite. For the Israelis every Jewish person who supports our rights is a self-hating Jew.”
[PLO Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot, X (Twitter) account,
Nov. 23, 2023]…
Israel does not accuse “every Palestinian” of being a terrorist, as Husam Zomlot claims, much less does the Jewish state imprison them. But at the same time, it knows that women and children are not always innocent; both Palestinian women and children as young as the mid-teens have been caught engaged in terrorist attacks, and neither their gender nor their age ought to prevent them from being prosecuted.
“…The prisoners do not want peaceful resistance. They want resistance that will fight so they will triumph. All the prisoners are in favor of the resistance… We are very proud of the resistance (i.e., Hamas), of the resistance’s achievements, and satisfied with what is happening in the Gaza Strip, with the abductions, the abduction of the captives (i.e., Israeli hostages).”
[Quds News Network, Twitter account, Nov. 26, 2023]
The Palestinian prisoners, by Zomlot’s own admission, don’t want “peaceful resistance.” They want the “resistance” that “will fight so they will triumph.” Hamas showed what kind of resistance it had in mind on October 7, when its operatives beheaded babies, burned children alive, gang-raped, tortured, and murdered girls, sliced off the breasts of women, gouged out the eyes, and cut off the genitalia of the men, children were murdered in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. These acts Hamas described as “resistance.” And these are the atrocities that Palestinian prisoners favor, and applaud.
At the time of the prisoner exchange for Israeli hostages, PA Chairman Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash also referred to all imprisoned Palestinian terrorists as “hostages” who have a “right to breathe free air”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “It is the right of these brothers, sisters, and sons to breathe free air (i.e., terrorist prisoners released in Israeli-Hamas ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal). We think that it is the right of every Palestinian to achieve his freedom and leave the Israeli prisons, because they are hostages in the hands of the occupation state (i.e., Israel), and without a doubt it is their right to be released and their families’ right to rejoice.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 24, 2023] …
So the Palestinians whom Israel has imprisoned are, in the views of both Husam Zomlot and of Mahmoud al-Habbash, not “prisoners” who have committed crimes, but “hostages,” placed on the same moral plane as the innocent Israeli civilians, including women and small children, whom they have been, and will continue to be, exchanged for.
ploome says
We have to start calling these individuals jihadis, and their method is terrorism.
Hamas is a ‘religious’ jihad movement totally consistent with islam
Robert_k says
Let’s ask NYTIMES’ Friedman what he would have Israel do?
Take the moral high ground anf embarrass Hamas . Release all the Hamas prisoners and dare Hamas no to release the Israeli hostages.
While you are at it, why not lay your heads out on the table before Hamas and dare them not to chop them off?
nicholas tesdorf says
There exists no Moral Plane low enough to accommodate ‘Palestinian’ Terrorists.