Wikipedia entry for Qanta Ahmed, author of this article : 

Holding pro-Israeli views, Ahmed is accused by her critics of being a “Zionist in a Muslim guise”. She is firmly opposed to the boycott against Israel, saying that the boycott movement attempts to vilify Israel in almost every argument.^[1] Ahmed is opposed to the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, but admits that she doesn’t know how Israel can relinquish control over a region hosting “a virulent Jihadist ideology” and leaders calling for her own destruction.^[1] In 2010, Qanta wrote, “Call me an Accidental Zionist, if you must, but Eretz Yisrael is a vital shelter, an only shelter, from lethal, genocidal anti-Semitism… If we care for wider humanity at all, we must all be ‘accidental’ Zionists and want for the Jews, for the Israelis, what each Muslim already has for themselves: a future, a nation and a faith, secured.”^[13]

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USA TODAY
by Qanta Ahmed
July 18, 2014

While Gazans, their Hamas leadership and pro-Palestinian supporters around the world condemn Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, now turning into a ground invasion, its time Muslims examined the Other Occupation: the inexorable advance of political Islamism over Islam.

Increasingly, Islam has been usurped by political Islamism, manifest in the current Israel–Palestine conflict as a war between Hamas and the Israel. Elsewhere, Islamism drives conflicts between ISIS and Iraqi government forces, the Pakistani Taliban and the Pakistan Army, the Afghani Taliban and would-be Afghani democratic leaders, Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamists and the Nigerian government, the Jama’at Al-Nusra and the Syrian Regime, the Iranian backed Hezbollah and Lebanon’s secular democrats, and until recently, the democratically elected but explicitly Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s secular politicians.

As political Islamism advances, Muslims everywhere, including Palestinian Muslims in Gaza, have been increasingly marginalized and oppressed by extreme Islamists. These Islamists subscribe not to Islam but a totalitarian ideology disguised as religion. While Islamists may fervently believe they are Muslim subscribers to Islam, what they adopt is a totalitarian politicization of Islam. Operation Protective Edge merely underlines this Other Occupation.

Heavy criticism has been leveled at Israel’s emphatic assault on Gazans and the Gaza Strip because of the escalating casualties. Less well acknowledged is that Israel is combating not just an organization devoted to securing its territory in a conflict over land, but a totalitarian ideology that definitively leaves no room for either Israel, Israelis or moderate Muslims to exist. We learn more when we allow Hamas to do the talking. Its leaders leave us no doubt as to its central philosophy, core to which remains martyrdom and unremitting anti-Semitism. The Hamas charter opens with: “We cannot recognize Israel. The land of Palestine is ours and not for the Jews.”…..

…..Both anti-Semitism and martyrdom are central to political Islamism. In contrast, neither has any role in pluralistic, mainstream Islam. Israel is not at war with Muslim Palestinians in Gaza but with their nihilistic Islamist leadership. In the Muslim World we are familiar with the battle between Islam and Islamism, and we make no bones about the need for open combat against political Islamists. Muslim militaries are not held to global condemnation in the way the Israeli Defense Forces must face — despite their targeted attacks, pre strike warnings, and efforts to contain civilian deaths.

READ MORE http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/17/palestinians-political-islam-hamas-column/12788093/