So, over at Tikun Olam, Richard, who has the stomach to read the Jerusalem Post on a regular basis, reports that Hamas is actually ammending its founding covenant. Hamas has been subject to heavy criticism over the charter, written in 1998. It’s considered (mostly by people who haven’t read it) to be a crude anti-Semitic screed that forcloses any possiblity of peace with the Zionist enemy. Certainly the charter as it now stands is a major obstacle to international recognition of Hamas as a legitimate governing body. A group whose constitutional document calls for Israel’s destruction can hardly be trusted to participate in peace negotiations, the reasoning goes…
The original charter is worth looking at. It does, in fact, contain a reference to the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (toward the end, in Article 32). The context is a call to all Arab states to unite against Zionism:
World Zionism, together with imperialistic powers, try through a studied plan and an intelligent strategy to remove one Arab state after another from the circle of struggle against Zionism, in order to have it finally face the Palestinian people only. Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle, through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. They are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar agreements and to bring them outside the circle of struggle.
The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. 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 worldwide consipiracy of Jews is referenced in several other parts of the charter, which I won’t bother quoting. There are also various eschatological references to Islam’s struggle against the Jews, including a widely circulated quote from the Koran:
The Day of Judgement 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, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.
Not very nice, if you’re Jewish - though I will point out that our own Torah is also full of promises to kill, destroy, scatter and otherwise decimate the enemies of the Israelites.
Less well publicized is Article 31:
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions. It does not antagonize anyone of them except if it is antagonized by it or stands in its way to hamper its moves and waste its efforts.
Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. Past and present history are the best witness to that.
Most of the document, however, is simply not about the Jews. It traces the lineage of Hamas to earlier Islamic resistance movements, establishes a religious right to the land of Palestine, lays out some principles of Islamic governance and (most prominently) calls on the Arab and Islamic world to unite in support of the Palestinian cause. In this sense, it rather resembles various Zionist documents, including the Likud party charter, which provide religious and historical justification for a Jewish claim to all of biblical Israel, while ignoring or refuting the claims of others.
According to the Jerusalem Post article, the Hamas leadership has been talking about revising the charter for several years. Dr. Azzam Tamimi, an academic sympathetic to Hamas, is coordinating the process.
For one year, Hamas leaders discussed potential changes in bilateral and trilateral meetings. Then in 2004, Hamas leaders began holding “charter workshops” with experts on Islam, political thought and the media. They met, five to six people, in hotel rooms in Beirut and Damascus.
Tamimi, who is pushing for major changes to the document, calling it “the worst thing that has happened to Hamas,” said he has attended two such workshops. “We sit and eat and drink and talk and talk and talk,” he said. “Some people want to leave [the charter] as it is.”
He said that among those supporting a changed text is Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. “If you notice, Khaled Mashaal never quoted it because he was not happy with it,” he said. “Sheikh [Ahmed] Yassin never quoted it because he was not happy with it.”
Tamimi says the anti-Semitic references are likely to be excised. The new charter would also allow Hamas to accept the two-state solution that is the basis of all current international diplomacy.
Israel would not be accepted as a state with a legitimate right to exist, because it was established where Palestinians once lived, he went on.
But the charter will provide the ability for Hamas to negotiate with Israel over a long-term hudna if Israel pulls backs to the 1967 borders and recognizes Palestinian rights, including the “right of return.”
Tamimi said that clauses in the 1988 charter declaring that that the land on which Israel exists is Islamic Wakf land - “consecrated for the future of Muslim generations until Judgment Day” and thus religiously forbidden to be given to a non-Muslim nation - would be either removed or, “because it does not reflect the reality accurately,” diluted.
It will be argued that this change is all public relations; and the hasbara mill is certainly invested in maintaining the image of Hamas as a bunch of Jew-hating extremists. Who knows? - maybe they’re right.
But it seems to me the movement’s internal debate over the charter reflects a serious effort to come to grips with Israel’s presence - to forge a pragmatic foreign policy that is still in keeping with the religious values at the group’s core.
Rank-and-file Hamasniks quoted in the Post article seem focused on a just solution to the conflict, rather than on Islam’s triumph over Judaism; and it is often the rank and file that determines the direction of a popular movement.
Some Hamas leaders in the territories said they didn’t know that the charter took viciously anti-Jewish positions.
“The charter doesn’t speak about the Jews,” insisted Jamila Shanty as she sat behind a desk at the Emad Aqel Women’s center she runs in Jabalya. The professor of psychology at the Islamic University is No. 3 on the Hamas list, making her the faction’s highest-ranking woman. “It says we don’t have a problem with the Jews,” she told the Post. “Our problem is with the Israelis who took our land…”
(Sheikh Yasser) Mansour echoed this distinction, saying, “We don’t have a problem with the Jews. We have a problem with the occupation. The Jewish people deserve respect and freedom to observe their traditions.” He added that Israeli Jews would be free to live in a Palestinian state as Palestinian citizens.
I’ll hazard a guess here. By the time Hamas forms a government five weeks from now, it will have formally modified its positions so that it can support peace negotiations based on a two-state solution. It may not recognize Israel in principle, but it will be able to commit to a policy of peaceful coexistence.
The issue of contention, then, will not be whether Hamas is willing to make peace with Israel, but the terms of the peace.
Hamas will insist on a return to the 1967 borders, Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, prisoner release, and an acknowledgement of the Palestinian right of return (whether, if the other issues were settled, Hamas would press for Israel to actually incorporate the refugees is uncertain).
Israel will not want to deal with Hamas on those terms - although, in my opinion, they are reasonable ones. It will demand that Hamas disarm before it enters into negotiations, and Hamas will refuse.
Absent committed diplomacy and real international pressure on both sides, the stage will be set for a renewal of violent conflict, with the homes and streets of Israel and the West Bank as the battleground, and innocent Israelis and Palestinians as the victims.
Thank you once again, Andrew, for contributing such important information. Your article provides some insight into possibilities. The public debate since the election has been so assumptive and one dimensional. Regardless of our own concerns about the meaning of the Hamas victory, the great mistake has been to apply simplistic labels and all inclusive dismissals. I have also read that a more literal translation of parts of the existing Hamas charter relating to Israel’s “destruction” are more accurately meant to object to the occupation of Palestinian land and not the destruction of Israel. Regardless, I will follow this story and hope you will keep us updated about the efforts to update the charter. The history and context of Hamas’ founding does not excuse the vitriol, nor does it excuse violence against civilians, that same history can inform us about why the charter was structured as it was. Israel had a part to play in supporting Hamas when Israel wanted to destabilize Fatah and the PLO. Let’s hope that the changes about which you write are effectuated and the world can move forward. Thank you again for your clarity.
Thank you so much, Howard. I will try to keep on the story.
Bad stuff going on in the Batala refugee camp now too. Will try to report on it.
For now here’s a link.
Andrew,
Thanks for this. There is much about Hamas that is not to like, but it’s good to see a nuanced view that reveals that there is more than one current in the movement. That gives more hope that now they are in power, the more practical side will take over.
Thanks, Liam! I’ll try to keep up with Hamas’ development. BTW there’s a terrific analysis in the New York Review of Books, for anyone who wants to read more on the movement’s challenges as a governing party; and a somewhat ill-tempered interview with the new Hamas prime minister in the Washington Post.
Thanks for posting this, Andrew! I hadn’t heard about this, and it’s fascinating. As always, I appreciate your clear head and open heart.
From my perspective, there’s not much point in textural interpretationin this situation; not of the Koran, not of the Torah, not of the Hamas charter or for that matter, not of the classic Zionist texts.
Any intelligent person can interpret any given text to justify and support whatever policies s/he is intent on pursuing. As some Englishman once said, “God is on the side of the biggest battalions.”
At present, the Israeli government seems intent on using the Hamas charter’s insistence on the elimination of the State of Israel to pursue its policy of ghettoizing the Palestinians and making it impossible for Hamas or any other governmental entity to effectively govern the Palestinian people. In the meantime, Israel (regardless of what it says) continues to expand the settlements on the West Bank.
At present, Hamas is being carefully, strategically non-confrontational. They may be considering changing the charter and in all liklihood will actually do so in time, but fundamentally, the organization is organized around the principle that in time (perhaps a very long time), Israel will invevitably fall because it will turn out that the Palestinians are better able to survive oppression. That strategy is not very different from the strategy that fuels the Sunni/Al Quada “insurrection” in Iraq. And whatever “W” may tell us, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are winning. So, I don’t think Jews/Israelis can ignore the liklihood that Hamas will not, in the forseeable future, regardless of what the charter says after it is revised, give up the idea of eliminating the Israeli state–any more than right wing Israelis will give up the idea that the Palestinians will somehow evaporate (as in when the Zionist settlers arrived, Palestine was “a land without people).
The boundaries of most conflicts are (in my opinion) defined by the extremists on both sides. It is in the middle ground, where progress is or is not made: which raises the issue of whether there IS a “middle” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To the degree that American Jews (we) an play a constructive role in the conflict, it will involve continuing to pressure Israel to negotiate with Hamas in something resembling good faith (much as they would hate doing so), and to encourage middle of the road Palestinians to pressure Hamas to open negotiations with those Israelis who are willing to talk with them.
There’s a long way to go to get anywhere close to that point, but that is the only hope I see. And then, foreign as the concept is to me, all we can do is pray.
I pretty much agree.
I’d point out that warring parties often hold ideologies that are mutually offensive or exclusive. The whole point of negotiation is to get the parties to change their positions. This usually involves mutual concessions.
Treaties are not based solely on trust, of course; they’re based on committments and verifiable actions.
It doesn’t make sense to me to refuse to negotiate because the opposing party won’t recognize your ideological stand or the rights you claim. Negotiations are supposed to get to that point, not start at that point.
The goal of international pressure should be to create a situation where neither party thinks it can acheive its goals by force; and both see more advantage in negotiating a settlement.
Andrew,
I think you say it very well.
Gerry