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Hamas asks Arab states to heed public condemnation of Israel normalization

Palestinians protest in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip against Israeli normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, on September 15, 2020, hours before a signing ceremony at the White House. (Photo by AFP)

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has urged the Persian Gulf Arab states to listen to public opposition among their people to normalization of ties with the Israeli regime.

In a press release issued on Sunday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem applauded the popular anti-normalization protests in many Arab countries, including Bahrain over the past few days.

He called on the Arab governments to listen to the voice of their people, stressing that the recent protest rallies reflected rejection of all forms of normalization with Israel.

“These peoples are aware, with their national conscience, of the danger of signing normalization agreements with the occupying Israeli regime,” Qasem said.

“These people has always considered Palestine the central Arab cause and treated the Zionist regime as their central enemy,” he added.

In recent days, Bahrainis have rallied throughout the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, condemning the ruling regime’s normalization of relations with Israel and setting Israeli flags on fire in defiance of ban on protests.

The Bahraini protesters carried Palestinian flags, asserting that Manama’s stance towards Tel Aviv and the ongoing favorable coverage of the rapprochement by some media outlets did not serve to represent the Bahraini public’s opinion.

The protesters blasted Manama’s intention to open an embassy in the occupied territories, and the reciprocal prospect of an Israeli embassy in Bahrain.

Bahrain’s main opposition group, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, has posted pictures of the rallies that were held in the capital Manama as well as many other places across the tiny Persian Gulf country.

Also, in the Yemeni island of Socotra, people rallied against the normalization deal between Israel and the two Arab countries of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, chanting slogans and carrying placards in support of the occupied Palestine on Saturday.

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed official agreements at the White House on Tuesday enabling full normalization of their relations with Israel. The deals had been announced by US President Donald Trump in September.

However, Palestinians and other Muslim states rejected the treaties with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause against the Israeli occupation. 

During the event, Trump claimed “five or six” more Arab countries were poised to agree to follow suit.

All Palestinian factions, Bahrain’s opposition groups, and numerous independent Muslim circles have roundly denounced the normalization trend as a “stab in the back” of the Palestinian nation and sheer betrayal of their cause of liberation from the Israeli occupation and aggression.

Observers say any normalization between Arab states and Israel could only serve to both woo the US-based Zionist lobby’s votes for Trump in the upcoming presidential election and deflect attention from a political and legitimacy crisis that Netanyahu is grappling with.

The Trump-mediated agreements have been met with uniform condemnation from all Palestinian factions, who call it a "stab in the back" of the Palestinians and sheer betrayal of their cause.

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, earlier warned that normalization efforts by some Arab countries will escalate Israeli acts of aggression against the Palestinian nation.

In May, Haniyeh had said that the Arab world will remain the stalwart supporter of Palestinians and their struggle against the Tel Aviv regime, irrespective of slightly covert bids to normalize relations with Israel in different fields, including politics, media, economy, sports and more recently culture.

The senior Hamas figure called for the enforcement of laws that criminalize any form of normalization with the Tel Aviv regime, and initiatives aimed at raising the awareness among Arabs and Muslims about the Palestinian cause.


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