Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Antisemitism in the Hamas Covenant

Yisrael Ne'eman

Antisemitism or the hatred of Jews is rampant in the Hamas Covenant, from the outset Jews are identified as the enemy (Introduction). Its nature is very similar to that of the vicious Judeo-phobia expressed in the Czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Art. 32) admittedly used as a point of departure when defining the Jewish enemy by the Hamas - Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Covenant is influenced by both the Protocols and Nazi German anti-Semitism. However these do not stand alone – the Islamist ideologues Hassan al-Banna, Sayyed Qutb and Abdullah Azzam all hated Jews. Qutb was the most vociferous, writing Our Struggle Against the Jews* as his central diatribe of venum. The Hamas Covenant reflects many of these ideas.
In Our Struggle Qutb declares the Jews completely untrustworthy as a matter of their nature and although he claims elsewhere that all can join Islam and contribute equally he sees Jewish conversion to Islam as a ruse to weaken the religion from the inside by those who are intrinsically evil and seek only to rebel against Allah, weakening the resolve of true Muslims. Qutb has no real historical timeline. Jewish tribes fought Islamic forces (Battle of Kaybar) and are said to have betrayed the Muslims (Medina) in the Arabian Peninsula of the 7th century and therefore will continue behaving in the same manner until the End of Days. Furthermore, in Biblical times the Jews are accused of having betrayed God while rejecting and slaughtering (false accusation) their own prophets. Whatever was, will always be.

Qutb accuses the Jews of preferring an alliance with polytheists/idolaters to supporting Islam. Instead the Jews plot to undermine Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. The Muslims were generous enough to award the Jews (and Christians) the dhimmi second class status provided they paid the jizya head tax when living under an Islamic regime. The Jews as People of the Book could retain their religion but this was not appreciated and the Jews remain the eternal unrepentant enemies of Islam. Exactly as Qutb explains, the Introduction to the Covenant declares, "our struggle with the Jews is long and dangerous" and this is the real issue. Hassan al-Banna is quoted demanding the destruction of the State of Israel in the Preamble but as Qutb explains Israel is just one more Jewish weapon or plot against Islam.

Jews are accused of bringing about the fall of the Caliphate (Art. 22) in the early 20th century and of establishing secular heroes for the Muslim world to worship thereby removing them from their true faith in Islam.

The Jews continue – through their wickedness and double-dealing- to lead this (Muslim) Community away from its Religion and to alienate it from its Qur'an.

These secular leaders are part of a Zionist conspiracy to undermine the Islamic world. According to Qutb the Jews are responsible for world decadence:

Behind the doctrine of atheistic materialism was a "Jew"; behind the doctrine of animalistic sexuality was a Jew; and behind the destruction of the family and the shattering of sacred relationships in society,… was a Jew.

- To which the Saudi editor (1970) of his work adds, "These three are, in order: Marx, Freud and Durkheim. And additionally, behind the literature of decadence and ruin, was a Jew – Jean Paul Sartre!!"

Qutb accuses the Jews of infiltrating and secularizing the Muslim professional and intellectual classes, hence the Hamas calls for indoctrinating those groups in a true Islamic education (Art. 30). Any thinking Muslim who does not adhere to a Jihadi antisemitic Islam is seen as a Jewish saboteur. In today's world this explains all those accusations by Islamists against the Arab secular leadership that they are Jews and Zionists. This is used in particular against the Egyptian regime.

Jews only trust one another and have a secret consensus to destroy Islam. This accusation is in line with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Judaism's supposed plot to destroy Christianity. It is interesting to note the population statistics of 2.7 billion Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims and 13 million Jews world wide – how could the Jews be a threat? The Jews can only win through subterfuge and sabotage because their numbers are so small. Qutb and Protocols accuse the Jews of supporting Godless communism and fostering Zionism. Blending those two ideals together one comes up with Labor Zionism, and although not mentioned directly Qutb spills his wrath on the Zionists when describing Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood battles against Israel in the 1948 War of Independence (Art. 7 and 31). He accuses the Jews of hiding behind fortifications, backs it up with a Koranic quote (59:14) and then ridicules the Jews for fleeing like rats – an stereotype developed by Hitler's minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. The Brotherhood and Egypt's military were defeated and confined to the Gaza Strip.

Using the Protocols and Nazi literature (in particular Chap. 11 in Mein Kampf) Article 22 of the Hamas Covenant accuses Jews of an array of sins resulting from the period of Enlightenment, stipulating the French Revolution, capitalism, communism, control of world finance and media. Jews are charged with war mongering/profiteering and controlling international organizations to spread their hegemony. These "crimes" are taken directly from these Czarist and Nazi sources. The ultimate antisemitism is in Article 7 with the call for Muslims to seek out and kill Jews, this quoted from an Islamic source (Bukhari and Muslim). While Nazism calls for a full extermination of the Jews, the Czars and the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) advocate killing Jews but can allow for their existence as a powerless underclass group with few rights.

Finally towards the end of Our Struggle Against the Jews Qutb explains that Allah sent Hitler to rule over the Jews because of their evil-doing in modern times. The Jews have once again returned to evil through the establishment of the State of Israel. The Jews returned to the Land and now it is the sacred duty of the Muslims to expel them.

As Qutb sees it Hitler was the hand of punishment against the Jews previously and now Allah's loyal Muslim believers are entrusted to continue the battle, finishing it forever.

*Text and Translation of Our Struggle Against the Jews used from Ronald L. Nettler – Past Trials & Present Tribulations, A Muslim Fundamentalist's View of the Jews,1987.


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