The following is an appendix to The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class. Copyright © 2024 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
Whatever opinion an individual might have of Hamas and of its bloody anti-Jewish massacre of 1,200 people October 7, 2023, anyone calling for an Israeli government ceasefire is in fact falling in step with the propaganda campaign planned in detail by Hamas’s leaders long before the slaughter and carried out ever since.
Hamas’s reactionary aim? To survive another day and keep on slaughtering Jews in Israel.
Hamas ruled Gaza, a de facto state, for almost two decades. It busted unions, arrested and tortured Palestinian political opponents, and denied women any semblance of equal rights. It ran the state, in the words of its own leaders, as “cover” to prepare assaults on Israel and the Jews.
Hamas is trained, financed, and aided in planning its assaults by the counterrevolutionary bourgeois-clerical regime in Tehran. Hamas was joined in its butchery, torture, and sexual outrages October 7 by Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other groups. None of them is a liberation organization of the Palestinians or anyone else among the oppressed and exploited.
Everything Hamas does is aimed at annihilating the Jews and destroying Israel.
Below is what Hamas says for itself.
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From Hamas’s founding 1988 covenant
Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. 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. … (Introduction)
“The Day of Judgment 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 Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”… (Article 7)
They 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, 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. …
They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. 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 22)
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. (Article 32)
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From 2017 Hamas document of General Principles and Policies
The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. … There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. …
Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances, and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. (Articles 18–20)
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Ghazi Hamad member, Hamas Political Bureau
From interview on Lebanese TV, October 29, 2023
Ghazi Hamad: “Everything we do is justified.”
The October 7 operation “is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”
Question: “Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?”
Hamad: “Yes, of course.”
“We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
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Mousa Abu Marzouk, member Hamas Political Bureau
From interview on ‘Russia Today’, October 27, 2023
Question: Many people are asking: Since you have built 500 kilometers of tunnels, why haven’t you built bomb shelters, where civilians can hide during bombardment.
Mousa Abu Marzouk: We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves [Hamas] from being targeted and killed. … Everybody knows that 75 percent of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them.
Later Marzouk added to BBC Arabic: “Do you expect me to fit 2.5 million people in the tunnels?”
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Khaled Mashaal, founding leader of Hamas and member of its Political Bureau
From interview on Kuwaiti podcast, January 2024
“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, which is the Zionist entity.
“This is unacceptable.”