The Hamas charter is the document which sets out the movement’s ideology as i twas formulated and honed by its founders. It includes its radical Islamic world view (conceived by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt), which has basically not changed in
the 18 years of its existence.3 With regard to Israel, the charter’s stance is un compromising. It views the “problem of Palestine” as a religious-political Muslim issue, and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as a conflict between Islam and the “infidel” Jews. “Palestine” is presented as sacred Islamic land and it is strictly forbidden to give up an inch of it because no one (including Arab-Muslim rulers) has the authority to do so. With regard to international relations, the charter manifests an extremist worldview which is as anti-Western as Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
right to exist as an independent, sovereign nation, the waging of a ceaseless jihad
(holy war) against it and total opposition to any agreement or arrangement that
would recognize its right to exist. At the beginning of the charter there is a quotation
attributed to Hassan Al-Bana,4 that “Israel will arise and continue to exist until
Islam wipes it out, as it wiped out what went before.”
Overt, vicious anti-Semitism, with both Islamic and Christian-European
origins, is used extensively throughout the document. The all-out holy war (jihad)
against the Jewish people is legitimized by presenting the Jews in a negative light and
demonizing them as wanting to take over not only the Middle East but also the rest of
the world. One of the jihad’s deadliest manifestations is suicide bombing terrorism,
which was developed mainly by Hamas during the 1990s and has become its leading
“strategy” in the ongoing violent Israeli-Palestinian confrontation.
3 The Hamas platform made public during the Palestinian Legislative Council election campaign was
based on the charter, made relevant to the internal Palestinian arena (with great emphasis placed on the
need for internal reforms). For further information see our Special Bulletin "News of the Israeli-
Palestinian Confrontation (January 1-15, 2006) ".
4 The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and an important figure in the Hamas d pantheon,
apparently killed by the Egyptian security forces in 1949.
6
The Jews are also presented as worthy of only humiliation and lives of misery.
That is because, according to the charter, they angered Allah, rejected the Qur’an and
killed the prophets (the relevant Qur’an verse from Surah Aal-‘Imran is quoted at the
beginning of the charter). The document also includes anti-Semitic myths taken
from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (mentioned in Article 32) regarding Jewish
control of the media, the film industry and education (Articles 17 and 22). The myths
are constantly repeated to represent the Jews as responsible for the French and
Russian revolutions and for all world and local wars: “No war takes place anywhere
without the Jews’ being behind it” (Article 22). The charter demonizes the Jews and
describes them as brutally behaving like Nazis toward women and children (Article
29).
The charter views the jihad (holy war) as the way to take all of “Palestine”
from the Jews and to destroy the State of Israel, and Hamas’s terrorist attacks are
seen as links in the jihad chain carried out during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Article 15 states that “the jihad to liberate ‘Palestine’ is the personal duty [
]” of every Muslim, an idea expounded by ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam.5
The charter emphasizes the battle for Muslim hearts and minds, or, “the spread of
Islamic consciousness” ( ), iwithin three main spheres: the
Palestinians, the Arab Muslims and the non-Arab Muslims (Article 15). The process
of fostering and spreading that “Islamic consciousness” () ish
defined as its most important mission. Clerics, educators, men of culture, those
active in the media and information services and the generally educated public
all have the responsibility to carry it out (.).
5 Abdallah Azzam was a Palestinian from the village of Silat al-Harithiya near Jenin, who was Osama
bin Laden’s ideologue, and later became a popular figure for Hamas. For further information see our
Special Bulletin "Who is Dr. Abdallah Azzam…,". His book defining jihad as the personal duty of
every Muslim was published in 1984 and it is reasonable to assume it influenced the Hamas charter.
7
As part of the battle for hearts and minds, the charter places a special emphasis
on education [i.e., indoctrination] in the spirit of radical Islam, based on the ideas
of the Muslim Brotherhood. Fundamental changes must be made, it states, in the
educational system in the PA-administered territories: it must be “purified,” purged of
“the influences of the ideological invasion brought by the Orientalists and
missionaries” (Article 15), and the younger generation should be given a radical
Islamic education based exclusively on the Qur’an and the Muslim tradition (the
Sunnah). The means used for ideological recruitment, as detailed in the charter, are
“books, articles, publications, sermons, flyers, folk songs, poetic language, songs,
plays, etc.” When imbued with “correct” Islamic belief and culture, they become an
important means of raising morale and building the psychological fixation and
emotional strength necessary for a continuing “liberation campaign” (Article 19).
The charter stresses the importance of Muslim solidarity according to the
commands of the Qur’an and Sunnah, especially in view of the confrontation taking
place between Palestinian society and the “terrorist Jewish enemy,” described as
Nazi-like. One of the expressions of that solidarity is aid to the needy (one of whose
main manifestations is the network of various “charitable societies” set up by Hamas,
which integrate social activities and support of terrorism).
The charter makes a point of the ideological difference between Hamas, with
its radical Islamic world view, and the secularly-oriented The Palestine
Liberation Organization, but pays lip service to the need for Palestinian unity
needed to face the Jewish enemy. It notes that an Islamic world view completely
contradicts The Palestine Liberation Organization’s secular orientation and the idea of
a secular Palestinian state. Nevertheless, notes the charter, Hamas is prepared to aid
and support every “nationalist trend” working “to liberate Palestine” and is not
interested in creating schisms and disagreements (Article 27).6
6 In reality, throughout its history Hamas has refused to obey the Palestinian Authority leadership, both
when Arafat was in charge and now under Abu Mazen. Its policy is one of independent terrorism and
the refusal to disarm, and it has established itself in the PA-administered territories as a kind of
alternative Palestinian Authority so that when the time comes, it will be able to take over the
government, as indeed happened.
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