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Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi, which aired on Dream2 TV on August 26, 2006:
Mona Shazli, Presenter: Sheik Safwat Higazi is one of the most well known people to appear on TV, talking about religious matters and fatwas. He is one of the most well known preachers, and he has a show on Al-Nas TV.
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He said, among other things, that if he saw an Israeli on the street, in Egypt, he would kill him. This may give the impression of being a fatwa to kill any Israeli Jew walking down the street.
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Safwat Higazi: I did not call upon people to kill Israelis in the streets. I never said such a thing.
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When I said what I said, I was dreaming a beautiful dream, which I hope will come true, and that we all agree upon it. I dreamt that we are the Arab Islamic States, not just Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. I was truly dreaming that we are the Arab Islamic States. Get a map of the Arab homeland, and erase the borders... Or maybe these can be borders between counties or states, like the USA, in which 49 states were united into one country. I had a dream that we were one country, called the Arab Islamic States. The capital of this country is Egypt, and the president of Egypt and its government head this country. This is the dream I dreamt.
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I said that these Israelis... I specified the Israeli Jew, not just any Jew. I said, word for word, that these are American Jews, Dutch Jews, and Jews from all other nationalities - and to them this does not apply. He must be a Jew and an Israeli, and not just any Israeli, because there are Israeli Arabs, there are Muslim Israelis from the 1948 Arabs, there are Christian Israelis... He must be an Israeli Jew, and, in parentheses - a Zionist. This was the first condition to my fatwa. The second condition is that he must be a combatant - in other words, a reserves soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces.
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The third condition was that this action must cause no damage. I even said that it was entirely forbidden for someone to wear an explosives belt and blow himself up, and destroy a car in the street, just in order to kill an Israeli.
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The fourth condition I mentioned was that no innocent person be killed. If we apply these four conditions of the fatwa in order to kill an Israeli, one must make sure that he is a Jew, an Israeli, and that he is between 21 and 54, the age of the reserves, and if she is a woman, she must be between 21 and 34, which is the age of the reserves [for women], and even then, he must make sure that she has no children, because a woman of this age with children is no longer a soldier in the IDF.[...]
Salah Issa, Al-Qahira editor-in-chief: He said: "I was imagining that this has become the Arab Islamic States, and that is why I said this." No. Excuse me, but you live here, in Egypt. Egypt has a peace agreement with Israel. Whether or not we accept it, this agreement exists. According to this agreement, any Israeli who comes here enjoys our protection, as Muslims.
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