Netanyahu Explains Hamas-ISIS Differences to Jewish Gathering

YERUSHALAYIM

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu elaborated on his remarks about the threat of radical Islam on Tuesday before a more receptive audience than the U.N. General Assembly — the heads of the Jewish Federations.

As Netanyahu entered the ballroom in New York, some 250 Jewish community leaders and activists were already on their feet applauding, he quipped, “This is a tough crowd.”

“Every time I come to the U.N. I try to tell the truth as it is,” he told them. “But here’s a picture I didn’t show in the U.N. yesterday. This is an impending execution. But this isn’t ISIS, this is Hamas. And during the recent fighting in Gaza, right around the time that ISIS was doing its grisly deeds, Hamas executed dozens of Palestinians just to impose fear and force the population of Gaza into submission.”

In an apparent allusion to U.S. State Department comments criticizing the comparison between the two terrorists groups, Netanyahu said: “It’s true there are some differences between Hamas and ISIS — for example ISIS beheads people and Hamas puts a bullet in the back of their heads. But to the victims, and the victims’ families, the horror is the same.

“The point I was trying to make yesterday and I’m making today is that we are faced with a world-wide network of radical Islamists, groups and regimes. It’s not that they have a common war-room. They have war-rooms against each other because all of them wish to dominate, first the region in which they are in and then, ultimately, the entire world.

“But they all share this fanatic ideology; they all have not only unbridled ambitions but also savage methods. And the more they have the capability to realize their ambitions, the more they’ll unleash their pent-up aggression against our common civilizations.”

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