In a column for the Gaza City newspaper al-Ayyam (www.al-ayyam.com), Hamad, a senior adviser to PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and editor of the Gaza weekly al Risala, asked if violence had become "a Palestinian disease."
Hamad, who is also head of the Islamic Salvation Party, raised the question after recent sectarian clashes in Gaza and Judea and Samaria killed 19 local Arabs and wounded scores. He asked whether violence had become "a culture implanted in our bodies and our flesh," adding that it "has taken away the language of brotherhood and replaced it with arms."
"Shouldn't we be ashamed of this ugly behavior, which scandalizes us before our people and before the world?" he wrote.
Hamad's paper, Al-Ayyam, was repeatedly closed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its criticism of Yasser Arafat and the Oslo negotiations, and was the target of an Israeli gunship attack in the spring of 2004.
Hamad was imprisoned by Israel from 1989 until 1994 and several times by the PA throughout the nineties.
Hamad, who is also head of the Islamic Salvation Party, raised the question after recent sectarian clashes in Gaza and Judea and Samaria killed 19 local Arabs and wounded scores. He asked whether violence had become "a culture implanted in our bodies and our flesh," adding that it "has taken away the language of brotherhood and replaced it with arms."
"Shouldn't we be ashamed of this ugly behavior, which scandalizes us before our people and before the world?" he wrote.
Hamad's paper, Al-Ayyam, was repeatedly closed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its criticism of Yasser Arafat and the Oslo negotiations, and was the target of an Israeli gunship attack in the spring of 2004.
Hamad was imprisoned by Israel from 1989 until 1994 and several times by the PA throughout the nineties.