Kuwaiti Government Newspaper Article Slams Hamas For ‘Violent’, ‘Thuggish’ Protest

TEL AVIV – A Kuwaiti government daily published an article slamming the “March of the Return” in Gaza as a “provocative” protest designed to trigger violence. The article called Hamas a “terrorist” group that uses women and children as human shields. It also praised President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy as being “courageous and correct.”

The Al Watan newspaper, which published the article, has since removed it from its website – likely due to backlash over the pro-Israel views of its author, Abdallah Al-Hadlaq. Hadlaq has in the past been included on a blacklist of Arab writers for expressing such views.

Published on Friday, the day the violent protests by the Gaza border erupted, Hadlaq said that such protests violate Islamic Sharia law.

“Demonstrations and sit-ins are un-Islamic and are unknown in Muslim history. These are non-Muslim methods that Islam does not accept. Violent demonstrations and sit-ins are negative phenomena that lead to chaos,” Hadlaq wrote in the article, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

He described Hamas as a terror group that is an ally of Iran and said that the march would not further its ostensible goal of generating international sympathy for the Palestinian “right” to “return” to Israel. He said the Palestinians’ “previous thuggish and violent marches” did nothing to garner international solidarity for their cause.

Notably, Hadlaq places the word “Palestinian” in quotation marks throughout the article.

Despite the organizers’ promise to control the marches and demonstrations and keep them non-violent so as not to give the IDF an excuse to use force, [we can assume,] given the violent and aggressive character of the terrorist, pro-Iranian Hamas movement, and its habit of using civilians, [including] women and children, as human shields, [that] these demonstrations and marches will surely turn into violence, destruction and chaos, and will not manage to generate international sympathy  for the “Palestinians” or any support for what they call their rights, especially the “right of return.”

He  predicted the non-lethal methods the IDF used “to keep the marchers from reaching the border zone.” He also said the IDF may be forced to resort to stronger methods if the fence were breached or lives were in danger, as indeed occurred. Sixteen protesters were killed by IDF fire, at least 10 of whom were later revealed to have been terrorist operatives.

Hadlaq said matters are only likely to escalate towards the end date of the march, set to coincide with Nakba Day – the Arab word for catastrophe – on May 15, which marks Israel’s independence in 1948. This year will be even more violent, since around the same time the U.S. embassy will move to Jerusalem as a result of President Donald Trump’s declaration in December.

“Any Palestinian proposal is doomed to fail after President Trump took the courageous and correct decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and to transfer the U.S. embassy there, and announced the Deal of the Century, to end the eternal conflict between the State of Israel and the unceasing Palestinian stubbornness,” Hadlaq wrote.

He added that Trump made his decision based on the fact that “Israel-U.S. relations are strategic and have cultural depth, so the U.S. will never conceivably give up [support for] Israel, which is its foremost ally.”

“The occasional disagreements between them are short-lived and confined to specific opinions and views. Israel serves the broad American plan, and the disagreements between them are negligible,” he concluded.