Palestinian reaction to the terrorist attack in Orlando that killed 50 nightclub goers was divided, with some expressing support and others condemning the murderous act.
Breitbart Jerusalem spoke with Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to get their point of view, with some calling it a natural response to U.S. policy in the region.
Abdel Majidawad, a masters student at a university in Gaza, reacted by claiming that American policy in the Middle East is provocative towards Muslims and Arabs, “some of whom are driven by the desire to take revenge on the Americans for what they see every day on the television as the U.S. military kills civilians on a daily basis, including in areas not controlled by ISIS.”
Majidawad claimed that most American bombs are directed at civilian areas where there is no presence of jihadists or those who the Americans label terrorists. “Images of dead innocents naturally drive Muslims to attack American targets, either out of a personal revenge or through recruitment or making contact with the organizations fighting in different areas in order to receive support and carry out an attack in that organization’s name, and that, in my assessment, is what happened in Orlando.”
Ahmad Abu Asser, an unemployed Gazan who recently completed his academic studies, also stated that “American policy is responsible for the attack.”
“The Americans need to reconsider their policies if they want to prevent the recurrence of attacks of this kind. American policy turns the U.S. into an enemy of the Arab and Muslim people, not only an enemy of the different groups in Syria and Iraq,” he stated.
According to Abu Asser, the Orlando attack will not be the last, and not only in the U.S. “I believe that these attacks will occur in all the countries that are attacking Syria and Iraq. Muslim youth are enraged and vengeful.”
An activist from Ramallah in the West Bank, Jasser Muhamad, says that he opposes harming any innocent civilians. “U.S. citizens are not responsible for America’s wars in the region,” he said. “It’s true that civilians are killed in American attacks, but the response doesn’t need to be to harm American civilians.”
Also from Ramallah, Yasmine Abed says that Mideast wars produce only violence and revenge and that innocent civilians are paying the price.
Adnan Hussein says he opposes the attack, “But it’s good that the public in the U.S. will think that they can be the victims of their government’s policies. When you have casualties in Iraq, there will be casualties in the U.S. While I oppose ISIS and oppose the attack, I want the Americans to think about the price of their government’s policies. So if the attack caused them to think, it was probably necessary despite the heavy toll to human life.”
Sufian believes that the attack was successful in every way. “An attack on homosexuals who challenge Allah and have male intercourse, which all religions forbid, and also an attack on the head of the axis of evil in the world, America and American civilians who don’t go out to the streets to protest against their government’s policies.”
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