AP reports that Hamas is mooting Jamal al-Khudairi (pictured), the chairman of the board of Gaza’s Islamic University, for the post of PA prime minister. This is may be part of an effort by Hamas to indirectly run the PA while avoiding the necessity of moderating it’s views, a strategy which was highlighted in the LA Times.
Meanwhile, the Baltimore Sun visited Islamic University to see what’s taught at the institution, which was opened by Hamas founders Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz-Rantisi:
At the Islamic University of Gaza, it was time for American literature class.
Professor Akram Habeeb informed his students that he was dropping Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter from the reading list. Hawthorne’s novel about an adulteress in a Puritan village punished for her sins by being forced to wear the letter A on her dress would be too painful to read, he said, in light of the Palestinians’ own troubles.
“We Palestinians are branded by the black letter T,” he said, scrawling the letter on the blackboard.
“And what is the black T ?”
His students – all women, dressed modestly in headscarves and long robes – appeared puzzled.
“Give us a hint,” one student said.
“Come on,” Habeeb urged.
“Terrorists?” one student asked.
“Yeah, terrorists!” Habeeb said excitedly, before jettisoning the day’s lesson for a lively discussion about the justifications for violence against Israel.
UPDATE 2/13: See also this visit to the campus by Knight-Ridder.
