Hamas’ Extreme (not) Makeover

Hamas’ Extreme (not) Makeover
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By Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman*

Thirty years ago, The Muslim Brotherhood spawned the Palestinians “The Islamic Resistance Movement” (Hamas in Arabic).

Generally, even evil political movements—try to put their best feet forward. Communism’s “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” was matched by Nazism’s promise to redress Germany’s sufferings under the inequities of the Versailles Peace Treaty.

From the start however, Hamas never cloaked its agenda in politically correct or Orwellian mode. It has been honest about its goals.

Here are some highlights from Hamas’ founding 1998 Charter, arguably the most anti-Semitic document since the defeat of the Nazi Third Reich:

• “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. . . . Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. . . . The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by…this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realized.”

• “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Muslim Brotherhood. . .. [T]he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take.”

• “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

• Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question . . . There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

• “In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children.”

• For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, . . . to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realization of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world . . . . They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the revolutions... With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.

• They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, . . .. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. . .. [They] instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it. The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion. . . All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions . . . [to] societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds.

• “We should not forget to remind every Muslim that when the Jews conquered the Holy City in 1967, they stood on the threshold of the Aqsa Mosque and proclaimed that ‘Mohammed is dead, and his descendants are all women’.”

• The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. . . . [T]hey will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’.”

• “Allah is its [Hamas’] 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.”

Hamas has always dedicated itself, in word and deed, to murder and maim Jews and to thwart any effort to bring peace—even when Israel turned over Gaza to the Palestinians with no strings attached. Hamas has perfected suicide bombings, weaponization of children, underground cross-border terror tunnels, launched thousands of missiles aimed at Israel’s heartland, and proudly deploys their civilians as human shields to run up the casualty counts during shooting wars with Israel.

But new times call for change, and even Hamas has entered the spin room for an extreme makeover. Ever since it took power in Gaza’s “Hamastan” in 2006, Hamas has even periodically flirted with the notion of a ten-year cease-fire—“hudna” in Arabic—with Israel, in order to get it removed from the world’s list of terrorist organizations. Now it appears that Hamas would have us believe that it is not at war with Jews only “occupying” Zionists. Yet Hamas’ most recent “moderate document” reaffirms its commitment to destroy Israel through "armed resistance.” Hamas calls for “the liberation” of all Israel “from the Jordan River eastward to the Mediterranean Sea on the West.”

Hamas gives lip service to a temporary Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, but promises that there will be “no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity . . . no renunciation of any part of the land of Palestine whatever the reasons, circumstances and pressures, and no matter how long. . . .”

Most important, Hamas refuses to revoke its 1988 Charter including the genocidal language from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” So much for its extreme makeover.

Caution: Hamas’ “new” document is not a prescription for peace but a precursor for the next war.

*This essay was co-authored by historian Dr. Harold Brackman

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