Hamas in their own words

The media, which occasionally define Hamas’s aggression and barbaric behaviour by the “lack of prospects” for the Palestinians caused by the blockade of Gaza, does not understand Hamas and therefore misinterprets the narrative of the conflict.

The reason behind the aggression neither relates back to the two-state model seen as a solution. According to this reading, with the two-state model, Hamas would have no reason to act as it does.

So, if only Israel could be persuaded to give in to Palestinian demands for a state of their own, there would be peace.

But Hamas’s terrorist activities have nothing directly to do with the blockade of Gaza or the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Here is why.

The blockade of Gaza began in 2007 after Hamas first won elections in the territory in 2006 and then seized power and violently drove Fatah out of Gaza. Hamas’s Islamic dictatorship began, as did terrorism against Israel from Gaza.

As a result, the Gaza seize began in 2007, which has sometimes been tighter and sometimes looser depending on the circumstances.

But Hamas was founded back in August 1988 to destroy Israel and there was no blockade of Gaza then. A few years later, with the 1993-95 Oslo Accords, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat was free to return to Gaza, to come and go almost as he pleased.

Hamas’s founding document of 1988 explains what the movement and its objectives are all about. And it says that the movement’s terrorist ‘resistance’ has nothing to do with the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The reason lies more generally in the existence of the Jewish state as such. It is about the whole of Israel, which Hamas considers to be occupied Islamic land and therefore in need to be ‘liberated’.

This is what the Hamas founding document, Covenant of 18 August 1988 states in its own words.

For example:

“Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam destroys it...”

Later, Article 7 quotes a hadith (al Bukhari) drawing inspiration from the words of Muhammad:

“The Day of Judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), at which time the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’.”

Those who think the solution lies in the two-state model should also read Article 13 of the founding document:

“Initiatives, so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are contrary to the principles of the Islamic Resistance ... The nationalism of the Islamic Resistance is part of its religion ... These conferences are only a means of imposing infidels on the Muslim land as arbiters ... There is no solution to the Palestinian question except jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and a futile effort”.

It is therefore not a question of a siege of Gaza, nor of the collapse of the two-state solution. It is a question about the existence of Israel in a territory which Hamas claims belongs entirely to Islam. And the only solution to ‘liberate’ the whole land is bloodshed and jihad.

Secular media however has hard time to understand that Hamas is not a normal rational actor that can be “bought” by material incentives and promises of peace and security with brighter material future.

For secularists, religion and fanatic ideologies are only a surface layer of personal identity covering real human aspirations which supposedly are ultimately material.

That is one reason why secular media find it hard to get the narrative right and explain Hamas as an actor.

Hamas is, according to their founding Charter, a sister-organization of the same Muslim Brotherhood as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. This is also reflected in the way it operates and governs.

In 2017, Hamas published a new document and its 42 principles. The language is more ‘moderate’ than the original charter (e.g. the references to Jewish world conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are no longer used, etc.), but the political aim and call for violent armed ‘resistance’ as a legitimate form of struggle has not changed.

The new document may be more palatable for Western rhetorical sensitivities, but the original Charter of 1988 with its genocidal Jew-hatred has nowhere been repealed.

[destacate]Hamas masks have fallen off as social media is flooded with videos of Hamas terrorists shamelessly gloating over the atrocities they have committed[/destacate]The academic intellectuals who, in the light of the new document, have claimed that Hamas had substantially changed were proved completely wrong by Saturday’s brutal and carefully planned bloodshed against Israeli civilians.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said of Russia's invasion of Ukraine: “The masks have fallen. Only the cold face of war is visible”.

The Hamas masks have also fallen off as social media is flooded with videos of Hamas terrorists themselves shamelessly gloating over the atrocities they have committed, killing entire families, abducting and raping women, brutalizing children and even the elderly. Some of them whee even Holocaust survivors.

Israel is not an enemy of the Palestinians or the Gazans. But Israel must live.

Pasi Turunen, theologian and radio broadcaster in Finland.