A Quick Look at the Hamas Charter

In the interest of forestalling a lot of nonsensical argumentation to the effect that Hamas is merely a "freedom fighting" organization whose rocket attacks against Israel were simply in opposition to "occupation" (which in fact Israel unilaterally ended back in 2005), I strongly suggest reading this Times article providing a few interesting excepts afrom Hamas' 1988 charter. I quote:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

[...]

Hamas slogan

Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes. (Article 8)

Peace process

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. (Article 13)

Duty to fight

It is necessary to instill the spirit of jihad (holy war) in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.

It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the Islamic movements, should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses).

It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Muslim generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. (Article 15)

That the leadership of Hamas takes its proclamations with the utmost seriousness can be observed by looking at material for "awakening the masses" like the following:

If anyone can argue with a straight face that an organization with such an anti-semitic, paranoid, religiously fanatical and genocidal world-view is amenable to "negotiations", I will be flabbergasted: that Hamas' leaders have not once ever suggested anything more than a "hudna" ("truce") of between 10-30 years - the prime motivation for which would be to provide time to build strength for the resumption of the jihad to, in Hamas' own words, obliterate Israel - ought to tell one something about the prospects of any lasting peace while Hamas holds the reins of power. Only a fool or an incurable anti-semite would expect the Israelis to act to support in any way an organization committed to their destruction, but that is just what so many incredibly dense individuals are doing when they criticize Israel for refusing to recognize Gaza's "democratically elected" government, or for then imposing a blockade on the Gaza strip after Hamas' seizure of power.

Finally, to put all the outcry about Palestinian deaths in perspective, it ought to be clear from Hamas' stated goals that if Hamas has been unable to kill 10,000 times as many Jews (and not just Israelis) as the number Palestinians who have been killed since Israel invaded Gaza, it is merely because Hamas currently lacks the means and know-how to do so, not because the jihadists would restrain their bloodlust in the slightest if the shoe were on the other foot. As is clear from the protesters abroad chanting "Nuke Israel!", "Go back to the ovens!" and "Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!", such sentiments are pretty much par for the course across the Islamic world: these people see nothing at all wrong with Palestinians launching thousands of rocket attacks at Israel, but suddenly discover humanitarian instincts when the Israelis decide to retaliate; in truth, what really irks them is that they lack the means to slaughter Jews in the vast quantities they desire, while their would-be victims in Israel have the gall not to simply bend their necks and wait to be killed.

Comments

[Andrew]

But consider the possibility that if Israel destroys Hamas in Gaza, there will only spring up a worse organization.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/01/04/worse-outcomes-than-a-strengthened-hamas/

I've been reading that one of the indirect reasons for Hamas's rise was that Israel and the US were deliberately trying to marginalize Fatah in the hopes that a more moderate negotiating partner would emerge. Oops!

[Abiola Lapite]

Sure, there's a *possibility* that such a thing could happen, but that doesn't mean a better alternative would be to do nothing: after all, there was at least as much of a possibility that Hitler's death would have made him a martyr on whose behalf the Germans would have fought to the death, or that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have hardened already fanatical Japanese resistance ...

Generally speaking, the argument that crushing an implacable enemy could lead to the rise of a worse one is one without much historical or even logical support. It's not as if Hamas is "moderate" in any sense of the word whatsoever as it is - that this Matt Duss character thinks of "Salafism" as somehow distinct from and worse than Hamas just shows his glaring ignorance of Islamic movements in general and Hamas (which is part of the far-from-moderate Muslim Brotherhood) in particular.

[jhkim]

The thing is, I don't think that the offensives are doing anything to actually get rid of the extremism among the Palestinians. Rather, it seems to me that the more bombs that Israel drops, the more hatred they inspire and more popular Hamas becomes. At this rate, they will just have to kill more and more of the Gazans.

The Hamas leadership and many supporters are most certainly repulsive, but the ultimate question is what should be done about this?

In the past, we have negotiated with Nazis, Imperial Japanese, Soviets, North Koreans, and plenty of other horrible regimes during the process of conflict. Negotiating didn't mean that we supported them, just that we were able to discuss our differences. We agreed to peaceful coexistence with the Soviets and North Koreans despite our differences.

[Abiola Lapite]

The Soviets were deterred by the prospect of being nuked into ashes, not by "negotiations" without brute force to back them, and even so tens of millions still died in numerous proxy wars around the globe - Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, etc. It is naive to think a group which loathes your very existence will simply give up its efforts if you say you want to talk, a reality Obama and his worshippers will wake up to soon enough.

As for the idea that Israel's campaign has only firmed up support for Hamas, not only is no evidence ever provided for such a thing, but it is also undercut by both history and also much of the reporting being carried out in Gaza itself. Unless Gazans are different from the rest of humanity, there must be a level of suffering at which even they will realize the futility of supporting Hamas, and the only question is whether Israel's latest campaign managed to reach that point or not: if the latter, then the blame must lie with those hysterically screaming "genocide!" and demanding a premature ceasefire enabling Hamas to keep its pride intact.

Finally, it's always interesting to me how people keep suggesting that Israel's actions inevitably radicalize the Palestinians, yet never consider that the terrorist activities of the Palestinians also have the same effect on the Israelis. If the Palestinians don't consider this consequence bothersome enough to refrain from terror, why should the Israelis care whether or not the Palestinians are "radicalized" even more? It's not as if we're talking about a mostly moderate people anyway - they elected Hamas in 2006, just *after* Israel completely pulled out of Gaza, settlements and all: far from interpreting Israel's unilateral disengagement a step forward for peace, the people of Gaza treated it as a victory for Hamas and its tactics, and that delusion is what brought things to where they are today, not Israel's belated decision to deal with Hamas.