The MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK shares its outrage and grief with the Palestinian people on the murder of Hamas leader Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi by Israelis.
This cowardly missile strike comes only a few days after Ariel Sharon returned from a visit to the United States of America, where he was feted as “man of peace” forging “historic changes” by US president George Bush. It was hardly month ago that the quadriplegic, spiritual Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, confined to a wheelchair, was killed in the same immoral and savage manner- in violation of all international laws and conventions.
The United States of America has been nurturing and sponsoring Israel’s vile acts of state terrorism for decades. The US has provided billions of dollars in aid, state-of-the-art military hardware, vetoed all resolutions censuring Israel, and most recently unashamedly supported Sharon’s plan to annex territory in the West Bank in violation of UN resolution 242. In addition to this the Bush regime also undermines the Palestinian right of return and is directly complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity.
The world will recall that Israel has carried out scores of assassinations in which hundreds of Palestinians civilians have been murdered. In June 2003 Israel attempted to assassinate Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, who escaped with light wounds, but the six rockets fired from two Apache Helicopters killed an old woman, along with Khadra Abu Hamada, 34, and her 3-year-girl, and Mostafa Saleh, 23, and wounded 27 other civilians.
Hamas has declared that such despicable acts will only strengthen their resolve to seek freedom from Zionist occupation and oppression. The MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK urges the Palestinian Authority to dissolve immediately and join the majority of the Palestinians in the trenches to fight to free all of Palestine.
The entire Western world and its servile Arab leaders have been hoodwinked by the Zionist regime pretending to seek “peace”, whilst it continued to devour and annex Palestinian land for decades. Surely it is time that Arab leaders, Egypt and Jordan in particular, to break off ties with the racist Zionist entity and terminate this charade.
The blood of these martyrs in a just cause will not be in vain. Shahids (martyrs) Yassin and Rantissi themselves expressed their fearless desire to die in a just cause. The MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK salutes them by recalling the words of the Holy Qurâan:
“Think not of those, who are slain in the way of Allah, as dead. Nay, they are living. With their Lord they have provision. Jubilant (are they) because of that which Allah hath bestowed upon them of His bounty, rejoicing for the sake of those who have not joined them but are left behind: that there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve. They rejoice because of favor from Allah and kindness, and that Allah wasteth not the wage of the believers.” (Chapter 3 verse 169-71)
Issued by Dr Firoz Osman, secretary of the MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK, an advocacy group based in Pretoria, South Africa.