As Israeli hostages are being released, many are hoping for an end to the conflict. Such hope is naïve because the evidence is that while an end to the fighting may be possible with the Palestinian people, long-term peace with Hamas is near impossible.
While Israel is a proper state and a liberal democracy, Hamas is a radical Islamist movement. Indeed, ‘Hamas’ is an acronym for the movement’s formal title in Arabic, ‘Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia’ – ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement.’ As Hamas’ title suggests, it is a radical Islamist organisation fundamentally opposed to peace with Israel. The cry ‘from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea’ is not a cry for peace, but instead an intention to establish a theocratic state covering what is now Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Its founder, Sheik Yassin, opposed peace and declared that Palestine is Muslim land ‘consecrated for future Muslim generations until judgment day’. He taught that Israel must disappear from the map and that his followers should seek the end of martyrdom or victory.
While it was formed from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, under Sheik Yassin’s leadership, Hamas took a more violent path than the Brotherhood. While the Muslim Brotherhood believed that Islamic law should be established before attending to issues in Palestine, Hamas reversed this approach, believing that jihad was the only way to resolve the Palestinian issue. As the Hamas charter stated, ‘Allah is the goal (of Hamas); Muhammad is its sign; the Qur’an is its law, jihad is its path, and death on behalf of Allah is (Hamas’s) highest aspiration.’
Since its origins, Hamas has thus been ideologically opposed to peace with Israel. The organisation’s goal is to maintain the armed struggle until Israel is annihilated utterly. Instead of being open to a two-state solution, Hamas wants a one-state solution – a theocracy extending ‘from the River to the Sea’. This practically means eliminating Jewish people and raising ‘the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’.
The fanatical religious nature of Hamas means that while we could hope for peace between Israel and most Palestinian people, there can never be long-lasting peace with Hamas. This is not just a matter of opinion, but something very clear from the founding covenant of Hamas. It declares that, ‘Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.’ It also claims that: ‘There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours.’ It rejects ‘initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, [which] are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement’.
It must also be made clear that Hamas aims not only to eliminate Jewish people from the Holy Land. Its founding charter declares a genocidal intention to exterminate Jews worldwide. As we also read in the Charter, ‘The Day of Judgement 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 Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.’
Since taking power, Hamas has spent years radicalising the population of Gaza, including its children. A good example is Tomorrow’s Pioneers, a Hamas children’s television program in which characters like ‘Farfour’, a Mickey Mouse-like character, indoctrinate children into the virtues of martyrdom and armed struggle against the Jews.
The result of this upbringing is that, in the words of former hostage, ‘There are two million terrorists in Gaza.’ Describing their captivity, ‘I was sitting with an 8-year-old boy and 4-year-old boys, who were cusing the Jews.’
It should be clarified that Hamas does not represent mainstream Islam any more than the Ku Klux Klan represents authentic Christianity. Indeed, in the words of Son of Hamas author, Hamas has corrupted the beautiful side of Islam, which is ‘humble, loving, forgiving, helpful, and prayerful’. Hamas has inverted Islam to glorify the ‘cruel side that required its followers to conquer and enslave the Earth’.
While peace may be possible with most Palestinians, it is most likely not possible with Hamas. Israel is a liberal democracy with the best interests of its people at heart. Hamas – the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a genocidal death cult that will sacrifice as many of its own people as needed to exterminate the Jewish people.
With the hearts and minds of Gazans so corrupted by Hamas, one cannot see long-term peace with Israel and has to wonder about a government that is allowing thousands of Gazans with virtually unknown ideology to migrate to Australia without proper vetting.
Dr Matthew Ogilvie is Chair of Friends of Israel WA and a Vice President of the WA Liberal Party. He has researched and taught in the field of religiously motivated terrorism.
