Talk:Hamas

Antisemitism in their ideology? They are clearly stating annihalation of Jews in their charter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellezzasolo (talk • contribs) 22:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Quotes in citations

As per the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 19#Quotes in references and per WP:COPYVIO I will remove the quotes within the citations. This will also make the article a bit shorter (especially the references section) and easier to edit.

Cheers, pedrito - talk - 04.07.2008 06:18

However, its founding charter, writings, and many of its public statements[7] reflect an incontrovertible evidence of Anti-zionism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alhizabr (talk • contribs) 20:32, 2 January 2009

Was Hamas created in 1976, 1986, 1987, 1988?

1976

The Oxford World Encyclopedia: "Hamas¶ The Islamic Resistance Movement founded in 1976 by Sheikh Yassin Ahmed, with the aim of creating an Islamic state in the former Palestine. "

1986:

"Son of Hamas": http://books.google.com/books?id=QFYw0R8S-KMC&lpg=PT282&pg=PT33

1987:

Wikipedia: "Hamas was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood at the beginning of the First Intifada."

The Corporate Security Professional's Handbook on Terrorism: "Hamas was a splinter group of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and was created as a separate organization in 1987."

1988

http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/HAMAS2006.PDF: Hamas is a creation of the Palestinian branch of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood movement. The organization was created in 1988 by the late Sheikh 11 Ahmad Yassin, the Hamas ideologue and founder who was then a preacher of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood movement in Gaza. In concurrence with his teachings, Yassin and his followers formed Hamas as the “military wing” of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. 86.68.157.246 (talk) {BG}; edited: 86.68.157.246 (talk) {BG}

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.68.157.246 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 4 January 2009

For 1987 I can add that it is mentioned that: 'Hamas was founded in 1987 (during the First Intifada)'. The first intifada started at December 1987 in that case Hamas was established on December 1987, When exactly? Maybe with the first manifest?

Both Filiue and Tamimi give December 14, 1987 as the date for the formal establishment of Hamas. Tamimi claims this was the date for the first communique signed Hamas, although according to Filiue, Hamas was not recognized as the official name for the Islamic resistance movement until February 1988.

Gaza Finance section

This at most needs to be boiled down to a few lines. It is scattered tidbits patched together with no synthetic thematic approach.

Gaza domestic funding

Hamas approved a 540-million-dollar government budget for 2010 with up to 90% coming from "undisclosed" foreign aid, which includes funding from Iran and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood according to western intelligence agencies. Due to the Gaza blockade, Hamas still faces a financial crisis. With a bureaucracy of around 30,000 staff, the organisation is growing faster than can be handled, with salaries being delayed or prioritised for the lowest paid. To fund its budget, Hamas has raised new taxes on businesses and imposed a 14.5% tax on luxury goods smuggled through the tunnels. Gaza businessmen have accused Hamas of profiting from the blockade and using these taxes to buy large tracts of land and private buildings for public facilities in competition to established businesses.

In August 2011, the U.S State Department threatened to cut 100 million dollars in aid it sends to the Gaza Strip if Hamas continues to insist upon auditing American foreign aid organizations after Hamas suspended operations of the International Medical Corps following the group's refusal to submit to an on-site audit. Most foreign charities submit their own audits to the Interior Ministry in Ramallah. Charities must be audited by law, possibly to ensure money is not diverted for political or intelligence-gathering purposes but as the U.S. government forbids direct contact with Hamas, the action prompted Washington to issue the threat via a third party. Aid provided by American and other foreign groups goes to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, where most of the 1.6 million residents are refugees.

A U.S. official based in the region said "USAID-funded partner organizations operating in Gaza are forced by Hamas's actions to suspend their assistance work. (They) were put on hold effective August 12." According to the official, Hamas demanded access to files and records of NGOs, which would reveal financial and administrative information, details of staff members and information on beneficiaries. He said Hamas shut down IMC and USAID after the U.S. objected to "unwarranted audits". Hamas administration official Taher al-Nono said Hamas had a right to monitor their work in the territory but an understanding had been reached that would allow independent auditing teams to inspect the files of NGOs.

A day after the U.S. announced it was suspending financial aid to Gaza, Hamas officials said they had reached an agreement with the United States that would allow USAID to continue operations.

In August 2011, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip imposed new travel restrictions on Palestinians active in non-governmental organizations by requiring them to provide details of the trip to the ministry in what the Palestinian NGO Network regards as another Hamas attempt to control and hamper them. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemned the new laws. Tharut al Bic, head of the interior ministry's NGO department, stated, "the new instructions are intended to make it easier for travellers to better organize their trip and to preserve order." Hamas requires sick people wishing to leave the Gaza Strip to submit applications and meet various conditions, in addition to restrictions Israel imposes on Palestinians leaving Gaza.

In 2014 Fatah accused Hamas of stealing a total of $700 million from aid directed at Gaza Strip reconstruction and civilian casualties of the conflict. In the beginning of October Hamas soldiers raided one of the branches of Bank of Palestine and seized $750'000 in cash. A number of Fatah activists also accused Fatah leadership of organized theft of aid resources.

References

Recent deletion of massive amounts of content

It has been pointed out that this happened. I'm posting this here so there can be more discussion about it.

Also, it seems odd to me that mention of terrorism is not included until the fifth paragraph, even though a number of nations (like the US) and international organizations (like the EU) consider either Hamas or parts of Hamas to be a terrorist organization.

Also, the sequence of sections after the lead have a weird order. One encounters huge sections about the etymology of Hamas (it means "zeal") and its organizational structure (apparently it has a 15-member Politburo) before encountering anything about what Hamas actually gets into the news for, i.e. terrorism and control of Gaza.

I think that the current structure (i.e. removal of the section on criticism and the order of the sections) could be considered to be downplaying certain aspects of this organization in a way not entirely consistent with WP:NPOV. OtterAM (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree insofar as their official designation as a FTO under the State Dept should be added to the lead, as long as the language is precise. As for why I moved the page, I should have probably discussed it here first but I think it was my second day in ARBPIA. It may have been a mistake. There were two reasons, 1)The article seems long enough that it is within guidelines to set up a spinoff. 2) At least some of the content was repeated in two sections (Rocket attacks is in the terrorism section, Al Aqsa TV is in the media section)...plainly, it was poorly organized. If any of the information that was moved to the new page has been left out of this article, such as Israel's position on human shields, that was unintentional on my part, and I would not object to its being restored. We could add a section on accusations of violations of International Law - as there have been allegations of this from NGOs - not only human shields, but I think also the use of children in war. I have a Law background and since it was my edit that caused the problem, I am happy to work with you to clean it up if you want. Seraphim System (talk) 21:18, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

In general, and in a systemic violation of NPOV, most key articles on Israel are relatively encyclopedic, with strong limits on polemical intrusions. All articles dealing with Israel's adversaries, in particular with Palestinians, are stacked with every available news source or thematic development highlighting criticisms, negative aspects etc., and none past muster as NPOV. If you want an NPOV page on Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., no indulgence in lengthy overdocumentation of accusations should be tolerated on the main page: these should have (as in the Gaza wars articles) systematically split off into separate articles. As the author of the rewrite down to its charter, (shortly to be changed, nota bene) I stuck to outlining what the scholarly literature said about its history, name, institutional structure and functions. That is what is ignored in newspapers, and what encyclopedic articles do. There is no correlation between many of the charges extensively cited against Hamas, and the empirical record, on using human shields for example, and to clutter the main article with this is pure POV pushing, as it would be to clutter the IDF article with the equally widespread claims it targets civilians, children and uses people as shields. So when doing the article look at the Israel Defense Forces and use that as a model. It has none of the rampant POV attack mode results you get in this. Nishidani (talk) 15:41, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Totally not acceptable, the article is now a whitewash. Especially as the massive removal was done without any discussion. Restoring. Drsmoo (talk) 17:16, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Restoring in the middle of a talk discussion would be a violation of the consensus clause. Seraphim System (talk) 17:18, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Then we'll wait to establish consensus, obviously your action was not acceptable. In response to Nishidani, I'd advise he read up on WP:Notaforum. I'll also remind him that (despite attempts to hide this information) Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist organization. Drsmoo (talk) 17:22, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist organization. It is also widely viewed, not in the West, in other terms. We don't take sides, and editors should not be editing to make a case for one partner in the conflict. Compare Al-Qaeda, which has been far more devastating in global terms, and yet the article does not suffer from the POV point-scoring we get here in favour of its adversary. There have been no attempts to hide any information I am aware of. One thing editors should keep in mind is the powers of attention of the reader. All of these articles are unencyclopedic because they are tinkered with, by endless additions, without the editors glancing at them in terms of wiki's policy on how to write an encyclopedic article. It's far more devastating to get a succinct summary of the available evidence, from all perspectives. than to maul the readers' eye with a long stack of stuff that is repetitive, poorly written, and informed by only one consideration, POV-plastering to screw the perrceived enemy. To state the obvious is not to abuse WP:FORUM. It is to remind editors that we must produce succinct, analytic, neutral overviews, the more so the more controversial the topic. This has been done with the IDF, and many other articles on Israel. The model is ignored on most articles regarding Palestinian realities.Nishidani (talk) 18:56, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

As I said in my response to User:OtterAM, much of the material in the removed section is already covered in other sections. It is not a "whitewash" as you say. We are currently discussing whether and how certain material should be sourced and reintroduced into the article, in a way that is consistent with its structure. User:Nishidani raises valid concerns about sourcing, and one option we are considering is to improve the quality of sourcing. I think this is possible. You are welcome to join the discussion. Seraphim System (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

The discussion is about how to organize the article. If they're reliable sources they should stay in the article. Drsmoo (talk) 17:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

It may be hard to believe, but this is not the only article I am working on - that said, I have zero interest in rewriting the entire article. After comparing the removed material with the current article, I am open to adding human shields back into the article. Here is my position: The main article for Human shields defines it as a political and military term, but it is currently widely in use in legal scholarship as a doctrine of law. I think it is a mistake to introduce further confusion about this. It should be cited first to the primary text of the law and so forth MOS:LAW. These accusations have greater significance then political bluster. Seraphim System (talk) 17:50, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Drsmoo:@Seraphim System: I'm glad to see you are discussing the issue. My vote would be to largely put back the information, as I implied in my original comment. I'd be happy to help with this, if this is indeed how we decide to proceed. OtterAM (talk) 18:15, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I was definitely scolded for making a mess of things copy and pasting to a new page. There was some technical cleanup I still don't understand - needless to say I will leave the page moving to others from now on. I am not sure if copying and pasting back in, with the needed reorganization, would present a problem. Seraphim System (talk) 18:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Specifically, I am open to expanding the currently existing media section, and adding a new section on international law/human shields which I would significantly rework and refimprove from the old version to focus on the ongoing scholarly discussion in law review. Seraphim System (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Seraphim System:@Drsmoo: I've replaced the text (although changed the order of the sections a bit) but made sure to leave the other changes that Seraphim System made after moving this section. In the next edit, I made some changes as proposed above to emphasize some of the more notable points about this topic. I also moved a misplaced subsection in the body of the article into another section. OtterAM (talk) 15:24, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I am not going to report it to ARBCOM, but ignoring consensus discussions to put in the changes you want with an edit summary that this reflects consensus is not ok. I am working on the human shields section now. We can open this up to RfC if you want, because I don't want to waste my time. Seraphim System (talk) 15:36, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Specifically you see User:Nishidani and my objections to the sourcing and structure and poor organization of the original version, you agreed, and then you put it back in anyway. That is borderline uncivilized behavior. We have two who want to restore the old version, and two against, so the next step would be RfC and that is what I recommend for you instead of edit warring. Seraphim System (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I did not say that this reflects consensus in the edits, just that I was carrying out my proposal. However, your earlier deletion of a huge section was done unilaterally too, and not based on consensus. OtterAM (talk) 15:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I think we should RfC - that is the only way to do this in ARBPIA right now without risking ending up in ARBCOM. I was still new in ARBPIA when I did it, and I did it because it was cluttering up and already long article with repeat information, not for POV reasons. RfC is probably the best/only way to resolve this. Seraphim System (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

You removed a large chunk of the article (which was built collaboratively) without consensus. Consensus needs to be established to remove that information. Drsmoo (talk) 15:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Show me where that information removed was built collaboratively. Most of this page was built by successive additions over time, irrespective of consensus or collaboration. Most editors add bits and pieces, and edit is complete indifference to problems of structure. Structure here is a major problem.Nishidani (talk) 19:38, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

These days I'm not sure what consensus means - since when has consensus meant that editors are not allowed to edit an article? Seraphim System (talk) 15:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't really think this is worth escalating, but I think RfC would be more respectful to your fellow editors who have voiced objection for style reasons (over burdens article, repeat information, excessive citation, etc.) Seraphim System (talk) 15:56, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@Seraphim System: Would you mind undoing the revert you did to my second edit? (The first of the two reverts you performed.) My second edit was not related to the main area of contention (i.e., whether to include the criticism section), but rather on a different aspect of the article.OtterAM (talk) 15:59, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

You mean the lead? I can restore it, I am not sure I can revert due to conflicting edits. Seraphim System (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@OtterAM: Due to editing conflict I will self-revert both, but I still object to adding the original section back in without the revisions we discussed. Seraphim System (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. The lead, but also moving a subsection from one section to another in the body. OtterAM (talk) 16:09, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, let's do a wider discussion of whether or not to move the "criticism" section to another article. OtterAM (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@OtterAM: I don't think it necessarily needs to be removed, but significantly reorganized. I would suggest moving the rockets content to the already existing rockets section under the Violence and terrorism subheading, and the media section to the already existing media subheading. Children and Women as human shields should be in the section about human shields, and the magazine and Al Aqsa TV should be in the media section. The Children's section should be about the use of children as combatants. I think this would fix most of the problems with the section's poor organization. Seraphim System (talk) 16:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I think you can go ahead with your reorganization of this section. My main concern was that some of these issues (in particular issues related to human shields and comments by human-rights organizations) might be hard to find if the section were removed from the article. However, reorganization to improve the section sounds like good plan. OtterAM (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Why You mentioned that Hamas is antisemitism? Did they say that??? if yes where is the source from their own sources?? (All Arabs are Semitic) And Hamas is not Fundamentalist organization, it is a part of Muslim brotherhood which is a moderate islamic organization, and all people know that.

This articles is full of lies — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamasse (talk • contribs) 13:20, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 May 2017

a new charter was published on 1st may 2017 by hamas, so this article needs major updates to reference this new charter, and to also to change the tense of comments related to the replaced 1988 charter. the new charter also has changes to the group's position in relation to the Muslim Brotherhood, a change in its negotiation boundaries, and its clarification on allegations of antisemitism and distinction with anti-zionism.

Further, there is significant bias in the current article which cherry picks quotes from the 1988 charter and interprets them in a non-objective manner to the benefit of occupying Israel. Upon response to this initial edit request, each instance of this can be particularlised and amendments proposed. Zali 999 (talk) 20:18, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

• A reference to this change is made in the side-bar (hidden, so to speak, in a citation to the WSJ), but I could not find any of it in the actual text. Kdammers (talk) 03:02, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Ideology: Antisemitism (until 2017)?

The sidebar names the ideology of the Hamas as "Antisemitism (until 2017)". It gives two sources, neither of which seem to say that Hamas is not an antisemitic organization as of 2017.

There are sources stating the opposite though 1,2,3.

As the antisemitism of the Hamas is apparent and well sourced - see eg the 1988 charter which is still in effect as of 2017, the quotes from various high-ranking members regarding Jews and the Holocaust, etc - a restriction like this should be supported by strong sources as well. As long as it is not, "(until 2017)" should be removed.