1 February 2001

In the name of Allah the most gracious the most Merciful

Hamas statement commenting on PA officials’ calls

asking our people in occupied Palestine 1948 to elect criminal Barak

  With the approach of the Zionist entity’s premiership elections, more calls and appeals are voiced by Palestinian Authority officials on our people in the occupied lands 1948 to vote for the criminal terrorist Barak, leader of the Zionist labor party, and to weaken chances of the criminal terrorist Sharon.

We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, along with all of our Mujahid people denounce such suspicious calls and regret such a low degree of humiliation to the extent of appealing to our people to elect the terrorist butcher Barak who ordered his army and soldiers to launch repressive and terrorist campaigns against our unarmed people in occupied Palestine 1948 killing 13 people and wounding hundreds of others. That same criminal shelled the West Bank and Gaza Strip cities with missiles using choppers and tanks killing more than 400 people and wounding more than 20,000 others in a period of four months. He also dispatched death squads to kill our people’s activists and Mujahideen in cold blood. He is still threatening more such crimes and terrorism.

Such stupid and rude calls send a clear message to Barak and Zionist enemy leaders that despite Barak’s massacres the votes of our people in the occupied lands 1948 would be cast in his favor and would attempt to save him regardless of what he had done or would do, thus urging him to commit more suppression and to repeat his bloodbaths.

The feverish attempts to salvage Barak from failure further represent a desperate effort to save the so called settlement process, which is already collapsing, and to save those betting on that alternative after our people had affirmed rejection of that option and declared insistence on the intifada, resistance, Jihad and martyrdom as the sole road to grab our rights and liberate our lands and holy shrines.

The Authority’s attempt to deceive our people with its claim that the terrorist criminal Barak was better than the terrorist criminal Sharon will end up in failure. Our people no longer confide in the symbols of capitulation and do not need anyone to pinpoint the enemies and butchers. Our people do not differentiate between Sharon, the mass murderer of Sabra and Shatilla, and Barak the mass murderer of the Aqsa intifada. Our people do not fear Sharon’s threats and are not deceived by Barak’s allegations. Our people’s slogan is let Sharon, Barak and all occupiers go to hell and let our lands be purged from their dirt.

We appreciate the stand of our people in 1948 represented in their commitment to boycott the election and not to vote for either of those criminal killers, since such a stance coincides with the national and religious standpoint in addition to our people’s higher interests.

The Islamic Resistance Movement

Hamas – Palestine

1 February 2001