Some individuals and groups who condemn Hamas for its bloody anti-Jewish pogrom and massacre of 1,200 people Oct. 7 are now backing the call by Hamas apologists for a cease-fire, which would allow the Islamist outfit to survive and slaughter Jews again.
Can’t Israel and Hamas negotiate an end to the conflict? Wouldn’t the war end if Israel would just agree to a Palestinian state side by side with Israel?
After waging a war against supporters of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas ruled Gaza — a de facto Palestinian state — for almost two decades. It busted unions, arrested and tortured political opponents, and denied women equal rights. It ran the state, in its own words, as “cover” to prepare assaults on Israel.
Hamas, which is trained, financed, and aided in planning its assaults by the reactionary regime in Tehran, is not interested in negotiations for two states.
Everything Hamas does is aimed at getting rid of the Jews and destroying Israel.
Read below what Hamas itself says.
From the Hamas 1988 covenant
“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.”
From the revised 2017 charter
“The establishment of ‘Israel’ is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”
“Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad
“Everything we do is justified.” Oct. 7, he said, “is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.” Asked about the cost to civilians in Gaza, he dismissed what happens to them saying, “We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
— Oct. 24, 2023
Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk
When asked why Hamas did not build a single bomb shelter for civilians in Gaza, but hundreds of miles of tunnels for its combatants and weapons, he said, that defense of the population “is the responsibility of the United Nations.”
— Oct. 27, 2023
Hamas leader Khaled Mashal
“We have nothing to do with the two-state solution. We reject this notion” because “you are required to recognize the legitimacy of the other state.”
— January 2024