SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

Poison Ivy League is more like it.

This fellow trained at Penn. I guess he interited all the wonderful western values they teach at Penn (NOT and NOT), home of the "Water Buffalo" incident around the time this guy was there.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14182015.htm

Hamas leader has strong tie to West Phila.

By Michael Matza
Inquirer Staff Writer

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The motorcade carrying Abdel Aziz Dweik, newly elected speaker of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian legislature, was weaving through traffic on its way to a downtown news conference.

Bodyguards in the lead vehicle looked back nervously every few seconds, making sure that Dweik's black Mercedes was keeping up.

Two days earlier, Israeli troops, backed by tanks, armored bulldozers and helicopter gunships, had raided the Palestinian prison in Jericho. The soldiers forced the detainees to strip to their underwear before arresting six men implicated in the murder of an Israeli cabinet minister and in weapons smuggling.

Now Dweik, who praises Philadelphia as his favorite U.S. city after earning two graduate degrees 20 years ago from the University of Pennsylvania, was before the microphones at a prisoners' rights news conference.

"We saw them naked and down to their underwear, and it brought to our minds the images of those who were humiliated in Abu Ghraib prison [in Iraq]," he said, denouncing the United States and Britain for withdrawing their prison monitors, thus facilitating the Israeli raid.

"This means we cannot trust any kind of an agreement with the Israelis, and we cannot consider the U.S.A. and the British government as unbiased brokers to solve the problems of the Middle East," Dweik said.

For this first-time politician, who says his job is "to reflect the pulse of the Palestinian people," biting commentary, delivered softly and with a smile, is all in a day's work.

A career academic with 25 years of experience as a professor of geography and urban studies at An-Najah National University in the West Bank city of Nablus, Dweik was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1948. His father, a secondary-school teacher, was Palestinian. His mother was Egyptian. The family moved to the West Bank city of Hebron shortly after Dweik was born.

Dweik, who wears his moustache short and sports a white beard, is highly educated. He earned a bachelor's degree in geography in Jordan and a master's in education from Bethlehem University. Studying on a U.S.-backed scholarship, he earned a master's in urban planning at State University of New York in Binghamton.

From 1985 to 1988, once again on a U.S. grant, he earned a master's and a doctorate in urban planning at Penn. His doctoral dissertation analyzed the reasons Palestinians commuted from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to work in Israel.

In a recent interview, he recalled his days in West Philadelphia fondly. Afternoons spent at the Van Pelt Library, reveling in its "millions of books." Forays to buy doughnuts, to which he says he became almost addicted. Communal prayer five times a day with fellow Muslim students in a room on the Penn campus.

Dweik said he was accepted at other universities, including one in the Southwest, but he chose Penn for the city's rich history and because being on the East Coast gave him the feeling of being physically closer to his home in the Middle East.

"I said Philadelphia is the best. It was the first capital of the United States. So let me go there," he recalled.

Moving to a different apartment about once a year, he had roommates from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey. He can't recall the exact location of the apartments, but "something about Walnut Street" sticks in his mind.

He returned to Hebron imbued with democratic values, including a deep respect for freedom of speech. Amid growing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Dweik began speaking out, "talking about the Palestinian problem as a political problem and calling for the emancipation of our people" at public forums, which got him arrested by Israeli authorities, he said.

"When I went to the court, I said, 'Can I defend myself in English?' They said no. So I spoke Arabic, and it was translated, and some of them knew Arabic very well. I said, 'Guys, I was in the United States, saying whatever I like, nobody stopped me there.' "

During his four-month incarceration, he met members of Hamas, the radical, frequently violent anti-Israel movement founded in the Gaza Strip in 1988.

"I was very much affected by their behavior, by their belief in the Palestinian cause," he recalled.

Continuing his activism after his release, Dweik was arrested again, then deported for a year to southern Lebanon in 1992 along with 415 other members of Hamas.

In Lebanon he met some of the founders of Hamas, including several who would later be eliminated by Israel in targeted killings. Because Dweik spoke English well, he became the deportees' spokesman in Lebanon for interviews with the English-speaking press.

Palestinian political analyst Hisham Ahmed said Dweik's high-profile experience as a spokesman helped prepare him for the role he would assume as speaker of the new legislature, in which Hamas holds 74 of 132 seats.

"He doesn't have much political experience outside of Hamas. But he is widely respected within Hamas for his understanding of the objectives of the movement," Ahmed said ...


It's good to know that "He returned to Hebron imbued with democratic values, including a deep respect for freedom of speech" and that "he is widely respected within Hamas for his understanding of the objectives of the movement -- such as ( from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant ):

Article Eight:

Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.

Article Nine:

... They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper.

Article Eleven:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?

This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.

Article Thirteen:

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

Article Fifteen:

The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.

It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the Islamic movements, should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses). It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum, to cleanse it of the traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the region following the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah el-Din (Saladin).

For a long time, the enemies [Jews and Christians - FDL] have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

How wonderful for Penn to have played a role in this nice man's career.

-- FDL
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"Millions For Defense, Not One Cent For Tribute" - Thomas Jefferson on paying ransom to Muslim corsairs (pirates).