1988 Hamas charter

The Hamas Covenant or Hamas Charter, formally known in English as the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, was originally issued on 18 August 1988 and outlines the founding identity, stand, and aims of Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement). A new charter was issued by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal on 1 May 2017 in Doha.

The original Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors". The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel. It emphasizes the importance of jihad, stating in article 13, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." The charter also states that Hamas is humanistic, and tolerant of other religions as long as they "stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region". The Charter adds that "renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion [of Islam]". The original charter was criticized for its violent language against all Jews, which many commentators have characterized as incitement to genocide.

The relevance of the 1988 charter in Hamas' activities has been questioned. In 2008, the Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, stated that Hamas would agree to accept a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, and to offer a long-term truce with Israel. In 2009 interviews with the BBC, Tony Blair claimed that Hamas does not accept the existence of Israel and continues to pursue its objectives through terror and violence; Sir Jeremy Greenstock however argued that Hamas has not adopted its charter as part of its political program since it won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. Instead it has moved to a more secular stance. In 2010, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stated that the Charter is "a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons". Hamas has moved away from its charter since it decided to run candidates for office.

The 2017 charter accepted for the first time the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before 1967 and rejected recognition of Israel, which it terms as the "Zionist enemy". It advocates such a state as transitional but also advocates the "liberation of all of Palestine". The new document also states that the group does not seek war with the Jewish people but only against Zionism which it holds responsible for "occupation of Palestine". Mashal also stated that Hamas was ending its association with the Muslim Brotherhood. After a new charter was scheduled to be issued in May 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement in which it accused Hamas of trying to fool the world and also asked it to stop its terror activities for a true change.

Background

In 1987, twenty years after the Six-Day War, the First Intifada (1987–1993) began. In the late 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization sought a negotiated solution with Israel in the form of a two-state solution. This was not acceptable to Hamas, the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the charter was written to bridge the ideological gap between the PLO and Muslim Brotherhood. According to Hamas's Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Ahmed Yousef, the Charter "was ratified during the unique circumstances of the Uprising in 1988 as a necessary framework for dealing with a relentless occupation". However, where the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology proposed a more universal Islamic vision, Hamas' charter seeks to narrow its focus on Palestinian nationalism and a strategy of armed struggle, or violent jihad.

While the PLO was nationalistic, its ideology was considerably more secular in nature compared to Hamas. Hamas subscribed to a neo-Salafi jihadi theology that sought national liberation by violence as permitted by divine decree. While its language was far more religious, its political goals were identical to those of the PLO's charter and called for an armed struggle to retrieve the entire land of Palestine as an Islamic waqf.

The original charter's tone and portrayal of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a front in an eternal struggle between Muslims and Jews has been an obstacle for the organization's involvement in diplomatic forums involving Western nations. The updated charter published in 2017 walked back many of these assertions while adding questions regarding the ability of Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to act as the sole legitimate representative for the Palestinians. In addition, the 2017 charter removed many references to the Muslim Brotherhood as the ties had damaged the group's relationship with Egypt, whom the country considers to be a terrorist organization.

Revised 2017 Charter

The 1988 charter was superseded in 2017. The revised charter removed many of the most controversial sections. But maintains disagreements with more moderate factions of Palestinian politics, such as Fatah. The revised charter was interpreted by some as being excessively focused on the priorities of internal allies, potentially to the detriment of the Palestinian people.

Relevance of 1988 Charter in the early 21st century

Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to Ismail Haniyeh (the senior political leader of Hamas), claimed that Hamas has changed its views over time since the charter was issued in 1988. In 2010 Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stated that the Charter is "a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons".

In 2006, Hamas proposed a government programme, which stated that "the question of recognizing Israel is not the jurisdiction of one faction, nor the government, but a decision for the Palestinian people." However many remain sceptical of Hamas's new stance, and view it as a ploy to hide its true agenda, "but it is equally true that the "new" discourse of diluted religious content—to say nothing of the movement's increasing pragmatism and flexibility in the political domain—reflects genuine and cumulative changes within Hamas."

Contrastingly, Mahmoud al-Zahar, co-founder of Hamas, said in 2006 that Hamas "will not change a single word in its covenant". In 2010, he reaffirmed a major commitment of the covenant saying "Our ultimate plan is [to have] Palestine in its entirety. I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognize the Israeli enemy."

According to Nathan Thrall, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, the original charter had been a long source of embarrassment among the reformists in the movement.

The 1988 charter was superseded in 2017. (see above) The revised charter removed many of the most controversial sections, but the motives for and implications of this have been debated.

Text of the 1988 charter

• Article 1 describes Hamas as an Islamic Resistance Movement with an ideological programme of Islam.
• Article 2 of Hamas' Charter defines Hamas as a "universal movement" and "one of the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine".
• Article 3 the Movement consists of "Muslims who have given their allegiance to Allah".
• Article 4 the Movement "welcomes every Muslim who embraces its faith, ideology, follows its programme, keeps its secrets, and wants to belong to its ranks and carry out the duty,"
• Article 5 Demonstrates its Salafist roots and connections to the Muslim brotherhood, declaring Islam as its official religion and the Koran as its constitution.
• Article 6 Hamas is uniquely Palestinian, and "strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned". It claims that the world will descend into chaos and war without Islam, quoting Muhammad Iqbal.
• Article 7 describes Hamas as "one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders" and claims continuity with the followers of the religious and nationalist hero Izz ad-Din al-Qassam from the Great Arab Revolt as well as the Palestinian combatants of the First Arab-Israeli War. It ends with Sahih al-Bukhari's hadith Muslim 2922, suggesting that the Day of Judgment would not come until the Muslims fight and kill the Jews.
• Article 8 The Hamas document reiterates the Muslim Brotherhood's slogan of "Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Qur'an its constitution, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes."
• Article 9 adapts Muslim Brotherhood's vision to connect the Palestinian crisis with the Islamic solution and advocates "fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail".
• Article 11 Palestine is sacred (waqf) for all Muslims for all time, and it cannot be relinquished by anyone.
• Article 12 affirms that "Nationalism, from the point of view of the Islamic Resistance Movement, is part of the religious creed".
• Article 13 There is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer.
• Article 14 The liberation of Palestine is the personal duty of every Palestinian.
• Article 15 "The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim". It states the history of the Crusades into Muslim lands and says the "Palestinian problem is a religious problem".
• Article 16 Describes how to go about educating future generations, with an emphasis on religious studies and Islamic history.
• Article 17 Declares the role of women in Islamic society to be the "maker of men". It condemns Western organizations such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, and intelligence agencies as "saboteurs" for promoting subversive ideas on women.
• Article 18 Defines the role of women as homemakers and child-rearers, providing education and moral guidance to men.
• Article 19 Promotes the value of art while promoting Islamic art over "Jahili" art forms.
• Article 20 Calls for action "by the people as a single body" against "a vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism, making no differentiation between man and woman, between children and old people".
• Article 21 Promotes "mutual social responsibility" and urges members "to consider the interests of the masses as their own personal interests".
• Article 22 Makes sweeping claims about Jewish influence and power. It specifically claims that the Jews were responsible for instigating multiple revolutions and wars, including the French Revolution, World War I, and the Russian Revolution. It also claims that Jews control the United Nations, and that they are supported by "the imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East".
• Article 23 Expresses support for all Islamic movements "if they reveal good intentions and dedication to Allah".
• Article 24 Prohibits "slandering or speaking ill of individuals or groups".
• Article 25 Discourages Islamic movements from seeking foreign support and expresses support for other Palestinian nationalist movements.
• Article 26 Allows consultation with other Palestinian movements that are neutral in international affairs.
• Article 27 Praises the PLO but condemns its secularism.
• Article 28 Conspiracy charges against Israel and the whole of the Jewish people: "Israel, Judaism and Jews". It claims that "Zionist organizations" aim to destroy society through moral corruption and eliminating Islam, and are responsible for drug trafficking and alcoholism.
• Article 30: Calls on "writers, intellectuals, media people, orators, educaters and teachers, and all the various sectors in the Arab and Islamic world" to pursue jihad.
• Article 31 Describes Hamas as "a humanistic movement", which "takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions". "Under the wing of Islam", it is possible for Islam, Christianity and Judaism "to coexist in peace and quiet with each other" provided that members of other religions do not dispute the sovereignty of Islam in the region.
• Article 32 Hamas condemns as co-plotters the "imperialistic powers" seeking to corrupt all Arab countries one by one, leaving Palestine as the final bastion of Islam. States that the Zionists' plan is set forth in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and that they intend to expand their control from the Nile to the Euphrates.
• Article 33 calls upon Muslims worldwide to work for liberation of Palestine.
• Article 34 represents the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as the axis mundi, the sacred point where divine cosmology and temporal history meet. Along with Article 35 it compares Israel with an imperialist-colonialist movement. The articles reflect and draws upon past examples of Crusader and Mongol invasions, both of which initially were successful but were eventually repelled.
• Article 36 outlines the goals of Hamas.

Statements about Israel

The Preamble to the 1988 Charter stated: ″Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam invalidates it, just as it invalidated others before it″.

Analysis of the 1988 charter

The original, 1988 version of the charter emphasize four main themes:

1. Destroying Israel and establishing an Islamic theocracy in Palestine is essential;
2. Unrestrained jihad is necessary to achieve this;
3. Negotiated resolutions of Jewish and Palestinian claims to the land are unacceptable;
4. Historical anti-semitic tropes that reinforce the goals.

The Covenant proclaims that Israel will exist until Islam obliterates it, and jihad against Jews is required until Judgement Day. Compromise over the land is forbidden. The documents promote holy war as divinely ordained, reject political solutions, and call for instilling these views in children.

The updated 2017 charter appeared to moderate Hamas's position by stating that Hamas is anti-Zionist, but retains the goal of eliminating Israel. Its claim that it is no longer antisemitic has been refuted numerous times due to the actions of Hamas as well as the statements of its leadership including Fathi Hamad who has publicly called for the killing of Jews.

Ideology

The 1988 Charter makes draws heavily on quotations from the hadith and Qur'an and builds an argument that Jews deserve God's/Allah's enmity and wrath because they received the Scriptures but violated its sacred texts, rejected the signs of Allah, and slew their own prophets. The introduction of the charter identifies Hamas's struggle as a continuation of "Our [long and dangerous] struggle with the Jews…".

Article Seven of the Charter concludes with a quotation from a hadith:

The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, 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.

— Related by al-Bukhari and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, criticized the founding charter of Hamas by labelling it as a "genocidal" document and compared it to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Referring to the charter in an article in The New Yorker magazine, American commentator Philip Gourevitch accused Hamas leadership of having "genocidal" intentions against Jews. According to Bruce Hoffman, the Hamas Charter exhibits "genocidal intentions".

Militant Jihad

The 1988 Charter went further in detailing how Jihad against the Jews was a duty. "The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters."

Antisemitic canards

The 1988 charter contains references to antisemitic canards, such as the assertion that through shrewd manipulation of imperial countries and secret societies, Jews were behind a wide range of events and disasters going as far back in history as the French Revolution.

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. With their money, they formed secret societies, such as Freemason, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. 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.

— Hamas Charter, Article 22

The charter continues by accusing Jews of engineering World War I as a pretext to abolish the Caliphate, create the League of Nations, and influence the British government into drafting the Balfour Declaration. It echoes Nazi propaganda in claiming that Jews profited during World War II. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, has compared these to those that appear in theThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Equivalence of anti-Zionism and antisemitism

Historians such as Jeffrey Herf have argued that unlike the PLO, which has distinguished their national struggle against Zionism from general antisemitism, Hamas, in their 1988 covenant, purposefully fused these two struggles into one against the Jews and Israel.

In contrast, the 2017 covenant denies the connection in its only direct mention of Jews everywhere:

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, antisemitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.

However, in 2019, Hamas official Fathi Hamad made an anti-Semitic exhortation to the Palestinian diaspora to murder Jews everywhere: "You should attack every Jew possible in all the world and kill them". Hamad's rhetoric was condemned by other Palestinians, and Hamas stated that Hamad's "personal" and "emotional" statements don't represent them; later, Hamad walked back and advocated for "limiting its resistance to the Zionist occupation".

See also

• Contemporary imprints of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
• Fatah–Hamas conflict
• Human rights in the Palestinian territories
• Islamic fundamentalism
• List of political parties in the State of Palestine
• Palestinian political violence
• Incitement to genocide

External links

• An English translation of the 1988 Covenant
• :Official translation of the 2017 Charter
  • archived copy