Mumbai: Amid the war between Israel and Hamas, Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia said Palestinians and their political authorities must learn from India’s freedom struggle.
Prince Turki, an ex-diplomat and spy chief, said he does not support military resistance in Palestine.
“All militarily occupied people have a right to resist their occupation, even militarily. I do not support the military option in Palestine. I prefer the other option: civil insurrection and disobedience. It brought down the British Empire in India and the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe,” Prince Turki said.
“Israel has overwhelming military superiority and we see in front of our eyes the devastation and oblivion it is bringing to the people of Gaza,” he further added.
“I categorically condemn Hamas’s targeting of civilian targets of any age or gender as it is accused of. Such targeting belies Hamas’s claims to an Islamic identity. There is an Islamic injunction against the killing of innocent children, women, and elders. The injunction is also against the desecration of places of worship,” he further added.
Speaking to a US audience at Houston’s Rice University, a senior Saudi official charged that Hamas was doing the same to President Mahmud Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s political authority as Israel does.
“I condemn Hamas for further undermining the Palestinian Authority as Israel has been doing. I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people, but equally I condemn Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian innocent civilians in Gaza and the attempt to forcibly drive them into [the] Sinai. I condemn Israeli targeted killing and the indiscriminate arrest of Palestinian children, women, and men in the West Bank. Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.
He also said Western media outlets are wrong to call the attack on October 7 as “unprovoked”. He also accused Israel of funnelling Qatari funds to Hamas.
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