"When we say innocent people we mean Muslims, as far as non-Muslims are concerned they have not accepted Islam and as far as we are concerned that is a crime against God... As far as Muslims are concerned, you are innocent if you are a Muslim, then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are a non-Muslim then you are guilty of not believing in God... I must have hatred to anything that is not Islam"
So I was intrigued to read on Harry's Place of this comment by Kamal Al Helbawy, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who had this to say in an interview broadcast on the BBC Arabic service in 1998:
"Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: I condemn the targeting of any civilian, but incidentally, I believe that every Israeli civilian is a future soldier.
Interviewer: He is what?
Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: A future soldier.
Interviewer: Even if he is two years old?
Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that [the Arabs] are like contemptible sheep, and that this is a land without a people, and they are a people without a land. They have very strange concepts. In elementary school, they pose the following math problem: “In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?” This is taught in the Israeli curriculum. What would you say about that? Should a child studying this be considered a civilian? He is a future soldier."
So the next time you hear those, on the surface, reassuring words that "we condemn the killing of all innocent people wherever they are" or "Those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of us all...", remember to ask "Who are innocent people?" and "What is a civilian?"; the honest answers, or lack of, might be rather revealing.
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