Hamas?

Who is Hamas? Apart from beeing those nuts who are firing rockets and sending out suicide bombers against Israel, who are they, and what do they really want?

I just went quickly through their charter and tried to understand what’s written there. As many people later claimed that Hitler has written everything down in his book “Mein Kampf” what he later actually did, maybe Hamas did also jot down their plans.

It is really hard stuff to read, so here the occurence of some important words in the text:

98 x Islam, 86 x Allah, 53 x Muslim, 43 x Palestin, 40 x Hamas, 36 x Jihad, 21 x Arab, 20 x Zion, 18 x War, 12 x Jew, 12 x Resistance, 10 x evil

The charta basically confirms every prejudice You had about them: They are fundamentalist muslims fighting for a world where everything exists “under the shadow [wing?] of islam”. The don’t want peace, they want victory, and an islamic world. On the other hand, they claim to be a humane movement, and a social movement. But in opposite to the PLO, which “has adopted the idea of a Secular State”, Hamas want a religous state.

I dont think a religous state is a good idea; maybe it can serve as a fallback if a society is not ready for a modern state. In the case of Palestine this sounds like a recipe for disaster; the palestinians are among the most enlightened people in the arab world; Palestinians lived in many different countries and know the world outside Palestine. And I do not think they really want a religious state, but that is what they have voted for. This all can turn into a civil war in palestine, but I do not think they are really crazy, but they are extreme, and Fatah is also not the salvation army.

I do not think that Europe can finacially support an organization that has killing jews and destroying Israel in it’s charta. Even if I think it would be possible to modify the charta and still keep the goal of a religous state, it is not going to happen anytime soon. So Hamas will turn to Iran.

It may be that we will soon see history repeating: In 1991, in the first Gulf War, palestinians were dancing in the streets when Sadam’s missiles hit target in Israel. Later, when Iraq was conquered the first time, the palestinias were isolated even in the arab world for some time. Will the same thing happen again after the U.S. have invaded Iran?

I think they should better rewrite their charta; at least, the have six women from thier slate list in parliement, out of 29. I really hope they may find peace in palestine.

And now some more excerpts from a translation of the charter of Hamas; by the way, wikipedia has another translation of the charta, which sounds some different: While palestinecenter.org translates “under the shadow of islam”, wikipedia says “under the wing of islam”. But here some parts of the palestinecenter version:

Article Five: Dimensions of Time and Space of the Hamas
As the Movement adopts Islam as its way of life, its time dimension extends back as far as the birth of the Islamic Message and of the Righteous Ancestor. Its ultimate goal is Islam, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution. Its special dimension extends wherever on earth there are Muslims, who adopt Islam as their way of life; thus, it penetrates to the deepest reaches of the land and to the highest spheres of Heavens.

Article Eight: The Slogan of the Hamas
Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.

Article Nine: Motives and Objectives
Hamas finds itself at a period of time when Islam has waned away from the reality of life. For this reason, the checks and balances have been upset, concepts have become confused, and values have been transformed; evil has prevailed, oppression and obscurity have reigned; cowards have turned tigers, homelands have been usurped, people have been uprooted and are wandering all over the globe. The state of truth has disappeared and was replaced by the state of evil. Nothing has remained in its right place, for when Islam is removed from the scene, everything changes. These are the motives. As to the objectives: discarding the evil, crushing it and defeating it, so that truth may prevail, homelands revert [to their owners], calls for prayer be heard from their mosques, announcing the reinstitution of the Muslim state. Thus, people and things will revert to their true place.

Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Article Seventeen: The Role of Muslim Women
The Muslim women have a no lesser role than that of men in the war of liberation; they manufacture men and play a great role in guiding and educating the [new] generation.
…
The women in the house and the family of Jihad fighters, whether they are mothers or sisters, carry out the most important duty of caring for the home and raising the children upon the moral concepts and values which derive from Islam; and of educating their sons to observe the religious injunctions in preparation for the duty of Jihad awaiting them. Therefore, we must pay attention to the schools and curricula upon which Muslim girls are educated, so as to make them righteous mothers, who are conscious of their duties in the war of liberation. They must be fully capable of being aware and of grasping the ways to manage their households.

Article Nineteen: The Role of Islamic Art in the War of Liberation
Art has rules and criteria by which one can know whether it is Islamic or Jahiliyya art. The problems of Islamic liberation underlie the need for Islamic art which could lift the spirit, and instead of making one party triumph over the other, would lift up all parties in harmony and balance. Man is a strange and miraculous being, made out of a handful of clay and a breath of soul; Islamic art is to address man on this basis, while Jahili art addresses the body and makes the element of clay paramount. So, books, articles, publications, religious exhortations, epistles, songs, poems, hymns, plays, and the like, if they possess the characteristics of Islamic art, have the requisites of ideological mobilization, of a continuous nurturing in the pursuance of the journey, and of relaxing the soul.

Article Twenty Seven: The Palestine Liberation Organization
The PLO is among the closest to the Hamas, for it constitutes a father, a brother, a relative, a friend. Can a Muslim turn away from his father, his brother, his relative or his friend? Our homeland is one, our calamity is one, our destiny is one and our enemy is common to both of us. Under the influence of the circumstances which surrounded the founding of the PLO, and the ideological invasion which has swept the Arab world since the rout of the Crusades, and which has been reinforced by Orientalism and the Christian Mission, the PLO has adopted the idea of a Secular State, and so we think of it. Secular thought is diametrically opposed to religious thought. Thought is the basis for positions, for modes of conduct and for resolutions. Therefore, in spite of our appreciation for the PLO and its possible transformation in the future, and despite the fact that we do not denigrate its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we cannot substitute it for the Islamic nature of Palestine by adopting secular thought.

Article Thirty-One: The Members of Other Religions The Hamas is a Humane Movement
Hamas is a humane movement, which cares for human rights and is committed to the tolerance inherent in Islam as regards attitudes towards other religions. It is only hostile to those who are hostile towards it, or stand in its way in order to disturb its moves or to frustrate its efforts. Under the shadow of Islam it is possible for the members of the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in safety and security. Safety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam, and recent and ancient history is the best witness to that effect. The members of other religions must desist from struggling against Islam over sovereignty in this region.