By Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute—
The Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second largest and hugely influential group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas, does not believe that the conflict with Israel is over Jerusalem, settlements, borders, checkpoints or Palestinian prisoners.
Like Hamas, PIJ’s “logical intellectual vision considers all of Palestine still occupied from the River to the Sea.” For PIJ, the only way for solving the conflict is by eliminating Israel and killing as many Jews as possible. PIJ sees Israel as one big settlement and a foreign implant that needs to be dismantled as soon as possible.
PIJ and Hamas have direct control over two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has shared borders with Israel and Egypt.
Hamas says in its charter (Article 11) that it “believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic waqf upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection.”
Article 15 of the charter states:
“In the struggle against the Jewish occupation of Palestine, the banner of jihad must be raised. That requires that Islamic education be passed to the masses locally, in the Arab and in the Islamic , and that the spirit of jihad – fighting and joining the ranks – must be broadcast among the Umma (Muslim community).”
The PIJ position and strategy, which is similar to that of Hamas, was recently outlined in an article written by Walid al-Qattati, a Palestinian writer and senior official of the group, and titled “The Philosophy of Resistance in the Thought of Islamic Jihad.” Continue Reading…