When asked about comparisons of his Hamas terror organization to the Islamic State (IS), Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Ambassador to the US Maen Areikat told Fusion’s Jorge Ramos, “Any analogy between Palestinian factions and these forces of darkness is completely inaccurate.”
The PLO ambassador explained: “Israelis cannot continue to control the Palestinians, subjugate them to human rights violations, international law violations, and at the same time expect the Palestinians to sit idly by and not do anything about the situation.”
Areikat has in the past sponsored the popular belief of many Palestinian officials that a future Palestinian should be free of Jews. The PLO ambassador said in a 2011 interview with USA Today, “I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” in reference to the possibility of Jews living in a Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the similarities between the two terror outfits:
“Hamas is like ISIS, ISIS is like Hamas. They are branches in the same tree,” he said. “We face the same savagery. The people who want to rocket our cities and conduct mass killings; and when they can, they murder children; teenagers; shoot them in the head; throw them from the 6th floor… and use people as human shields.” Hamas and ISIS are the “enemy’s of peace, the enemies of Israel, and the enemies of all civilized countries,” he added.
In August, Breitbart’s Joel Pollak documented the several means in which Hamas closely conducts itself akin to the Islamic State.
While some suggest that Hamas and the Islamic State pursue different means to achieve their ends, both terror organizations have explicitly stated that their endgame is to establish an Islamic caliphate that follows the Shariah Law system; known for its barbaric and primitive treatment of women and non-muslims.