Hamas isn’t now and never was a movement for Palestinian national rights. Its roots are in the reactionary Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood and the Jew-hating course led by Amin al-Husseini, appointed grand mufti of Jerusalem by the British colonial rulers of Palestine in 1921.
Al-Husseini, a member of a prosperous landowning family, used Jew-hatred to keep workers and exploited farmers from challenging the rule of the semifeudal landlords and rising capitalist class in Palestine and to block them from forging ties of common struggle with Jewish workers. He helped organize brutal pogroms against Jews in 1929 and 1936-38.
Hamas’ long history of murdering its opponents and its killing of leaders of the protests in Gaza today is also in continuity with al-Husseini. He frequently ordered his agents to murder anyone, including members of other landlord families, who challenged his authority or were open to cooperation with Jews.
Al-Husseini met with Adolf Hitler and collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, spewing Nazi rhetoric on Arabic radio stations and organizing a Muslim-Bosnian detachment of Nazi storm troopers. His goal was to further the “Final Solution,” the extermination of the Jews. After the war, the Muslim Brotherhood welcomed him to Egypt and praised him as the continuator of Hitler’s work.
Hamas’ 1988 founding covenant puts the call for Muslims to kill all the Jews at the heart of its anti-working-class program.