Date: Oct. 19/04
Host: MICHAEL COREN
DR. MOHAMMED ELMASRY (NATIONAL PRESIDENT, CANADIAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS): We'll go back again
to the basic. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is an aggressor. This is
Israelis. They are occupying the West Bank and Gaza for the last 37 years. It's a fact.
It's an illegal occupation.
GUEST (UNIDENTIFIED): Well, I would disagree.
ELMASRY: So this means the settlement there - I'm quoting the United Nations - is illegal
settlement. These are armed...
MICHAEL COREN (HOST): Let's go to pre-occupation of the West Bank.
ELMASRY: No, but let me give an example, one example from European history. If you look,
actually, in the resistance of the French against the Germans, they did the same thing.
They blow up bridges. They did kidnap people; they assassinate people.
COREN: Who?
ELMASRY: The French. They assassinated soldiers and their collaborators, and French.
French civilians.
COREN: But Mohammed, I think that's a rather tenuous argument. I mean I know little about
the war and the French resistance and the lack of it, sadly, but there is no... I can't
remember of one case where the French resistance, the Maquis (?) or even their allies,
communist or Gaulist or nationalist, would go into a school where German children were and
kill them all.
ELMASRY: That's why we saying that totally innocent people...
COREN: OK.
ELMASRY: ... and totally innocent people, obviously, is the children. But they are not
innocent if they are part of a population which is total population of Israel is part of
the army... From 18 on, they are part of the soldiers, even if they have civilian clothes.
COREN: So if Israeli children are killed, that is a valid use of military force by
Palestinians?
ELMASRY: No, they are not valid...
COREN: So what are you saying?
ELMASRY: I'm saying that it has to be totally innocent, OK? Totally innocent are the
children, obviously, OK? But they are not innocent if the army [inaudible] in civilian
clothes, OK?
COREN: What about women?
ELMASRY: The same, if they are women in the army...
COREN: Anyone over the age of 18 in Israel is a valid target.
ELMASRY: Anybody above 18 is a part of the Israeli army...
COREN: So everyone in Israel and anyone and everyone in Israel, irrespective of gender,
over the age of 18 is a valid target?
ELMASRY: Yes, I would say.
[BREAK.]
COREN: We're back on the Michael Coren Show. I want to push you a bit on this, Dr.
Elmasry, because you speak about the French resistance. Now the French resistance to the
Nazis, first of all you have... the Nazi army occupies your country. It rounds up
communists, Jews, gay men, any gypsies who are present, members of the Catholic clergy,
some Protestant leaders. It takes them off to gas them. It takes away the entire elite of
your nation. The French resistance forms; it does what it can. It... armed resistance
against German soldiers - very few German civilians in occupied France anyway. It
assassinates SS leaders. It does assassinate major collaborators who were helping the
roundup of victims and so on. You're saying that that is the same as Palestinian military
campaign - and some of it, I think, is understandable and valid - but you're saying it is
the same as the Palestinian campaign. For example, a suicide bomber gets onto a bus and
sees that there are people there - no one's in uniform - and just blows herself up and
kills everybody. They're morally...
ELMASRY: But Michael, really, the definition of terrorism is really a means to an end,
which is actually ending terrorism, either by a group or an individual or a state...
COREN: It sounds like sophistry to me, actually.
ELMASRY: No, no, it's true; it's true. I mean I would like to wake up one day and there is
no terror either by state...
COREN: You mean you'd like to win?
ELMASRY: No, I would like actually for the conflict to stop, for the aggressor to stop the
aggression, OK? So does this mean that, for example, when you look at any conflict, there
is an aggressor and their victims...
COREN: Not as simplistic as that, I think.
ELMASRY: It is actually... if you look at the Chechenyan against the Russian, I know the
history; I know the history of Iraqi... American occupation of Iraq. You don't have to
have a Ph.D. in political science to identify that in the Israeli West Bank, occupied West
Bank and Gaza, the Israelis, for the 37 years, are the occupying power. So the resistance
is the same as the French resistance. Use low-tech. You don't have helicopter phantoms,
and they do whatever they want. They make mistakes; they make mistakes, yes, and we have
to condemn it.
COREN: I've got to tell you I think you've just dug a very large hole for yourself there.
I am not unsympathetic, and I do believe that Israelis use way too much force and I
believe that Palestinians are blanketed with the term "terrorist," which is very
unfair, but what you've said there, I believe, is very dangerous talk. There's a massive
difference.
IRFAN SYED (LAWYER): I wouldn't be so definitive as saying that everybody over 18 is a
legitimate target. I mean obviously that goes too far. I mean even according to our faith
belief, you have to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. That includes
women, children, the elderly and all that.
ELMASRY: Everybody above 18 is a combatant.
SYED: This is the thinking of... unfortunately, it was Israeli thinking and it's been
adopted by the US and other governments, including Russia, whereas basically saying,
"Alright, if we've got to stop the militants or the terrorists, then we've got to
make the civilian population hurt so bad that they will stop the militants." So what
are they doing? In fact, they're trying to influence the behaviour of the civilians by
terrorizing them. Now isn't that what the terrorists who don't have the state doing the
same thing? Aren't they trying to terrorize the civilian population of a state in order to
force those civilians to react in a way to force their governments to do something? So
it's the same thing, and again, going back to basics, like terrorism is a tactic. I think
we're agreed on that, and it's a tactic that evolves when there's asymmetric warfare
between vastly divergent parties in terms of their capabilities. Now at least the Canadian
government showed some wisdom in not defining terrorism. They defined terrorist activity
and also terrorist groups as saying terrorist groups are people who engage in terrorist
activities and people who fall in these listed groups that we've put in by regulation.