Civilian deaths: Saudi king condemns ‘collective massacre’

Holds international community accountable; criticises Islamic State.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah condemned the war in Gaza on Friday as a “collective massacre” and a crime against humanity, but stopped short of directly condemning Israel for its ground campaign against Hamas, AP reported.

Unlike past Gaza wars, including the devastating 2008 offensive, the Saudi monarch did not condemn Israel outright for the conflict, which officials say has killed at least 1,500 Palestinians, mainly civilians, since it began on July 8. Israel says 63 of its soldiers and three civilians in Israel have been also killed.

King Abdullah appeared to suggest that both Israel and Hamas were responsible for the current situation, saying that the violence in Gaza has led to “various forms” of terrorism whether from groups, organisations or states.

“All of this is happening while the international community is watching silently with all its institutions and organisations, including human rights organisations,” he said in prepared remarks read out by a presenter on state television. “This silence has no justification.”

But the king did not call for any specific action to be taken against Israel in his remarks.



The 90 year-old monarch’s apparent balancing act was indicative of the recent shift in regional politics, where Egypt’s leadership and other states have cracked down on groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned Hamas. They have also warned their citizens against joining radical groups in places like Iraq and Syria.

In his remarks, the king pressed Muslim leaders to unite against extremism, saying terrorists are wrongfully carrying out deadly acts in the name of Islam and tarnishing the religion’s “purity and humanity.”

His remarks appeared to be directed at groups like the Islamic State and its allies, which have taken over territory in Iraq and Syria and whose fighters view the Western-allied Saudi ruling family as enemies.

“It is shameful and disgraceful that these terrorists are doing this in the name of religion, killing the people whose killing Allah has forbidden, and mutilating their bodies and feeling proud in publishing this,” the statement said. “They have distorted the image of Islam with its purity and humanity and smeared it with all sorts of bad qualities by their actions, injustice and crimes.”

The swing in Saudi rhetoric, particularly toward Israel, is rooted in the turmoil that swept through Egypt and saw the ousting of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi from power last year and the branding of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group — in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Many countries in the region see the Brotherhood and its affiliated Islamist movements like Hamas as a direct threat to their rule. The two countries that had good ties with the Brotherhood, Qatar and Turkey, have strained ties with Egypt and oil-rich Gulf states. Egypt has in the past blamed Hamas for supporting the Brotherhood and of trying to destabilise the country when the group was ousted from power by the military.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2014.