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Kuwaiti writer Ahmad Sarraf said that Palestinian rights will only be restored once Arabs start respecting human rights. He made his remarks in an interview that aired on Al-Arabiya Network (Saudi Arabia) on June 4, 2021. Sarraf added that there have been numerous cases of Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel, who were beaten to death in the streets or executed without due process. He said that this is part of the "general backwardness" of the Arabs, and even if Palestine would be returned to the Arabs, they would continue to fight one another. Sarraf also said that Arabs do not value human rights and that in every Arab and Muslim there is a "little ISIS," that is waiting to come out. For more about Ahmad Sarraf, see MEMRI TV clips nos. 5349, 2062, and 134.
Ahmad Sarraf: "To the Israeli regime, the Israeli human being is the most important thing. For us, unfortunately, when 6,000 or 10,000 die in a war here and there, we say that they ascended to heaven and that this is Allah's decision. Maybe they did ascend to heaven, and maybe they didn't, but this does not change the fact that we lost them. We have no value for human life. Only when human life becomes valuable to us, will this mark the beginning of the 1,000 mile journey to restoring the rights of the Palestinians in their land.
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"I have seen dozens of videos of people accused of spying for Israel and of directing the Israelis to places where fedayeen were hiding or to places from which rockets were launched... These people were beaten to death in the street. In other cases, they say that they had held a quick trial and executed that person. Why do we disrespect human life so much? That person could be innocent of any blame, but we do not have time for details. This is part of our general backwardness... I wrote in an article that if Palestine was returned to us today, we would continue to fight against one another.
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"I called [ISIS] 'a sentimental movement' because in the heart and mind of every one of us there is a little ISIS. ISIS has not been rejected by Al-Azhar, or by Naiaf or Tehran, or by Kairounan in Tunisia or by any [similar Islamic institution]. This means that ISIS is part of us.
Interviewer: "Do you mean that the Islamic and Arab world holds the same ideology as ISIS?"
Sarraf: "Not necessarily, but in the mind of every Muslim person there is a little ISIS, lying dormant, waiting for the right time to come out. We, as Muslims, reject the entire world. We do not respect the world. We have [religious] texts that justify this behavior, yet we criticize others because their texts preach hatred towards us and our rejection."
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