Wednesday, March 30, 2011

“Hamas: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow-No Partner For Peace”

Dr. Harold Brackman
THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER
March, 2011

OUTLINE
Hamas’ “Protocols of Terror” In Its Own Words Introduction: Behind the New Flare Up in the Holy Land—Hamas’ Ambitions Deep History: Hamas Before There Was a Hamas Hamas’ Own “Protocols”: The 1988 Charter Hamas and Suicide Bombing I—The Terror Strategy Hamas and Suicide Bombing II: The Cult of Death Hamas as Global-Local (Glocal) Hybrid Conclusion: Why “Moderating” Hamas Won’t Work APPENDIX: Hamas’ Suicide Terror Attacks, 1993-2010 NOTES
HAMAS: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow— NO PARTNER FOR PEACE
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HAMAS’ “PROTOCOLS OF TERROR” IN ITS OWN WORDS
THE CHARTER OR “SACRED COVENANT” (AL-MITHAQ) (1988) :
PREAMBLE: “‘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). . . . Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. . . . The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized.”

ARTICLE 7: “‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems 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 . . . would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews’.” [citing “al-Bukhari and Moslem”] ARTICLE 8: “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 15: “‘I swear by the holder of Mohammed’s soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed.’.” [quote from “the Emigration,” verse 13]
ARTICLE 17: “[Y]ou you find them [the Jews] giving . . . constant attention through information campaigns, films, and the school curriculum, using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs.”
ARTICLE 22: “They [the Jews] strived 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,
HAMAS: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow— NO PARTNER FOR PEACE
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HAMAS’ “PROTOCOLS OF TERROR” IN ITS OWN WORDS
publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. . . .With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there. You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, . . . 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. It was they who 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.”
ARTICLE 28: “The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion. It does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end. It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions. They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion. . . Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. ‘May the cowards never sleep’.”
ARTICLE 31: “The Zionist Nazi activities against our people will not last for long. “For the state of injustice lasts but one day, while the state of justice lasts till Doomsday.”
ARTICLE 32: “The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. . . .Their plan is embodied in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying. . . .The Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself to be the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism and a step on the road.”
HAMAS: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow— NO PARTNER FOR PEACE
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HAMAS’ BATTLE CRIES:
“‘I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite all their fingers and toes.You have killed them not, but Allah killed them’.”
“Truly, the destruction of the state of Israel is a Quranic inevitability.”
“The language of bullets and bombs is the only language that the Jews understand.”
“We tell them [the Israelis]: in as much as you love life—the Muslims love death and martyrdom.”
“Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”
“Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims.”
“The Jews are a cancer that is spreading and is threatening the entire Islamic world.”
“[Jews are] brothers of the apes, assassins of the prophets, bloodsuckers, and war mongers. . . . Only Islam can break the Jews and destroy their dream.”
“They [the Zionists’] established a state to protect the Jews from death and murder. If death and murder chase them in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Netanya . . . then they will say: I want to flee and go back to Europe and America.”
“The Islamic Movement gives it condolences to the hero of the attack [at Beit Lid in January 1995], which led to the killing of twenty pigs and injuring of sixty monkeys.”
“The war is open until Israel ceases to exist and until the last Jew in the world is eliminated.”
“You [America] will face the mirror of your history for a long time to come. . . . [With the 9/11 attacks] Allah has answered our prayers.”
HAMAS: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow— NO PARTNER FOR PEACE
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HAMAS’ BATTLE CRIES:
“We are in love with the color of blood.”
“Palestine is a green tree whose thirst can only be quenched with the blood of martyrs.”
“Our words remain dead until we die in their cause.” “Hamas has won the election on the Israeli body county ticket.” “When the blood of martyrs irrigates the land, roses appear.” “The children are the holy martyrs of tomorrow.”
HAMAS: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow— NO PARTNER FOR PEACE
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Introduction: Behind the New Flare Up in the Holy Land—Hamas’ Ambitions
There is a rabbinic dictum that—after the last biblical Prophet—only fools prophesize. It would be sheer folly to try to predict where the dominos will ultimately fall in the Arab World. Still, one core assumption has been swept away by today’s seismic upheavals: the time-worn mantra that “the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” is at the core of the Middle East’s problems. From Tunisia, to Libya, to Egypt and now Syria and beyond to the Islamic State of Iran, it’s the regimes’ corruption and crimes, not the Holy Land, that brought millions to the streets to brave arrest, torture, or a bullet.
Yet nobody should be surprised that the enemies of peace and democracy, whatever their terrorist faction, are exploiting in the Holy Land the combustible regional situation by targeting deep into Israel’s cities and Ashdod and Bersheeba with deadly accurate Grad missiles and blowing up a Jerusalem bus station, killing 1 and injuring 39.
What about the “Palestinian Street”? Demonstrations in the West Bank and abortive demonstrations in Gaza have protested failed policies and demanded reconciliation between the Mahmoud Abbas-led PA and Hamas. Despite death threats, President Abbas has even offered to travel to Gaza to break the current impasse. Initially, he was rebuffed by a newly emboldened Hamas that may have lost support in Gaza but is gaining it in the West Bank, while rebuilding and upgrading its military capabilities—with help from Iran. But now Abbas has met with top Hamas officials in the West Bank City of Ramallah because “There would be no peace achieving the aspirations of our people without ending the split.”
Hamas is also buoyed by the growing clout of its founder—Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Poised to play an ever-growing role in the post-Mubarak era, it wants Egypt to open up its Gaza border to open transfer of hi-tech arm shipments. There are already indications that the U.S. and Europe may view the changing landscape in the Arab world as an opportunity to begin dialogue with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, and even Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Will Hamas be next?
In Gaza City, Hamas must feel that time is now on its side.
Could a rapprochement between Hamas and the PA-Fatah enhance the prospects for Mideast peace? Don’t count on it. In Gaza, Hamas finds it easier to launch missiles against Israel than new “human bombs,” but the cult of the suicide bomber is still alive-and-well. The late Dr. Aziz Rantisi, trained as a pediatrician, called becoming a suicide martyr “among the highest, if not the highest, honor.” Hamas still shouts, “The blood of our martyrs will not be wasted on the negotiating table.” Schools venerate those who blow themselves up, even as Hamas threatens UNWRA for daring to suggest teaching about the Nazi Holocaust. Mariam Farahat, three of whose six sons died as suicide bombers, won election on Hamas’ slate as Umm Nidal: “Mother
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of the Struggle.” She says: “Those who say we have changed our methods, we will never change.” The experience of Gaza’s Christian community provides an idea of what would happen on the West Bank and East Jerusalem if Hamas ever took over those areas. Announcing “the end of secularism and heresy in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas immediately targeted the Strip’s handful of Greek Orthodox.20
A Palestinian government including Hamas would mean no “two state solution,” no freedoms, and no peace for years and maybe decades. There is no nuancing Hamas’ genocidal, “Protocols of Zion”-spouting founding Charter. When it comes to “Zionists,” there is zero daylight between their civil society and military wing. Hamas’ military infrastructure is as interwoven with hate for Israel, as its civilian infrastructure is embedded with missiles aimed at the Jewish State’s heartland.
Previous attempts at Hamas-Fatah rapprochement actually led to escalating violence and outright civil war in Gaza in June 2007. Back in September 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected an American-mediated peace deal. Launching the Second Intifada, Arafat (in the words of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu) bestowed “embraces and kisses” on Hamas, even copying its suicide bombing campaign. Arafat came to rue his decision, as did his successor Abbas who in 2007 declared: “It is Hamas that is shielding Al Qaeda, and through its bloody conduct, Hamas has become very close to Al Qaeda [in Gaza].”21
The world should think long and hard before agreeing to drink the ‘let’s engage Hamas’ moderates Kool-aid. Let’s remember it’s been concocted by the same academic and foreign policy elites who were wrong about Khomeini in 1979 and who have been as clueless as everybody else about the Arab world’s new ongoing tsunamis.
Peace in the Holy Land will not come via appeasement of Hamas and demonization of Israel. Want democracy and freedom for Palestinians and security for Israelis? Then, stick to the goal of two democratic states—one Arab, one Jewish—with transparency on both sides. Anything less remains a prescription for disaster.
This Report details Hamas history as well as its present ambitions. It documents the rise (in Netanyahu’s words) of “Hamastan . . . [as] a proxy of Iran in the image of the Taliban.” It avoids media spin—especially the anti-Israel bias of so much mainstream media coverage.22
Because “past is prologue,” we need to do all we can to prevent a Palestinian-Israel future under the dark shadow of Hamas.

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