Stated Motivations Have Effects

 

I have read the Hamas Charter, both the one from 1988 and the one from 2017 – supposedly the most civilized one. I believe that knowing their declarations, their principles, is a way to shed a light on the History of the region, a History that sometimes is shown to us in a confuse and superficial way, to say the least. If we see that their way of seeing the World is one of aggression and violence you can have a better idea of who is provoking the painful situation in the Middle East. I will focus on the one from 2017, since it is the “current” one.

It starts talking about the land of Palestine, defining its limits as absolutely all the territory “from the river to the sea”, with absolutely no space anywhere in the Middle East for Israel, and how it all belongs to the Palestinian people. It pledges absolute loyalty to Islam, and puts the “right to return” to the “occupied land” as a priority for this religion.

It describes the “Zionist project” as a racist, colonialist, aggressive, and expansionist project, opposed to the “national project” for the Palestinians, that is, their legitimate “right to return” to where is now Israel, and states that there never should be any recognition of the “Zionist project” – that is, what the World calls Israel – Article 19 – and rejects any possible “alternative” solution or compensation – article 13. It does use the words “from the River to the Sea” and states that nothing must come in the way of the “resistance” against “occupation”. The “national project” must be the goal of all institutions that exist or might come to exist in Palestine

You see a lot of use of some nice words, like “peace”, “institutions”, and even “democracy” and “tolerance”, but they put these words in service of their fight goals, not their fight in service of those concepts. For instance, let’s take article 25. It states that “resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws.” Note, it uses the nice words “international laws”, but just to say that their fight is protected by those laws, not, in any point, that the fight will be guided by these laws. They don’t have to follow the laws, it’s the laws that give them all the right.

And notice the use of the expression “with all means and methods”. That is, anything, absolute anything they ever do to “resist the occupation” is lawful. To have a military group ruling a country, a group whose charter says it will use “all means and methods” without even once submitting to any other convention or even mentioning any limits should be considered against Internation Law.

Article 28 says that Hamas adheres to managing the Palestinian relations in basis of “pluralism”, “democracy”, “partnership”, even “acceptance of the other”, but followed by the words “to fulfill the goals and aspirations of the Palestinian people”.

The whole charter is like a funnel, where a lot of things are thrown in, like “justice”, “freedom”, “human rights”, “basic principles”, and it all goes to a bottle’s neck, which is “national identity, national project and national goals”, and falls in the bottle, with is “resistance”. The goal of everybody, individuals and institutions in Palestine must be to serve the National Project, which is defined in the beginning of the Charter ss taking “back” the whole land and “resistance” is the most important form of serving this “project”.

Article 23 says that Jihad is a totally legitimate form of “resistance”, not forgetting that “resistance” is the most important thing of all and so Jihad is a “honor and a duty” for all Muslims. We know that their interpretation of Jihad means that their military actions are a duty toward God, and everything they do in that context is blessed. In fact, there were people in Gaza, right after October 7^th, shouting words of praise to God to celebrate the attack, that included cold blood murder of infants and rape of young woman.

In the end, it is clear that no law, convention or norm ever limits their religious interpretation of their “fighting duty”, which we know is absolutely radical. Where in the charter there is room for compromise or agreement? Where in the charter they speak of “resistance” as subjected or limited by any universal norm?

In article 9, Hamas states that Islam upholds the higher values of freedom, indignity and is the true enemy of discrimination, but this is a way of saying that Islam is the higher authority that should rule above all. Islam is above the international norms, and it is going to be someone’s interpretation of Islam of course. I think religion is good, but it definitely shouldn’t be the sole guide of military actions. Otherwise, their religious leaders always “know best” than anyone who comes to speak about international laws and norms.

It is clear that they place the right of the Palestinians to “return to their land” ss a duty above any other obligation. That is the justification for their total commitment to do everything possible against Israel, as long as anything called Israel exists.

And what can I say about this whole land issue? Well, Israel triplicated its size as a result of Wars that were started by Seven Nations against them. They gave back part of it – including Gaza – but not all. And when they gave back Gaza it became a home for Terrorism aimed toward Israel. Why? Because they wanted Israel to go back to its original size? Why don’t we read the Hamas Chart? They clearly state “nothing at all to the Zionist”.

By the way, you can be a Muslin in Israel. And instead of thinking just on the British mandate of Palestine, we can think of the Arab World. The Arabs have more than 7 million square kilometers in the middle east, and were asked to give 10 thousand to the Jews after World War II, and they didn’t accept. And the Israelis defended from their attacks and ended up with 22 thousand. How terribly colonialist, Imperialist are the Jews right? Who is surrounded by who?

Hamas knows that they can’t simply talk about this issue in terms of square kilometers of land, or material property. Jews lost a lot of material property in the 20^th century, that they had in Europe and in Muslim Arab countries. Hamas knows that a total materialist view on “land” can’t convince people yo give everything – their safety, their basic needs, their lives and the lives of their children – to fight for it.

If I once had a land, that was just a piece of land, and because of a conflict I was removed from it, I would accept monetary compensation. Right now. Most people would. Hamas knows that to engage a whole group of people in fighting to “return” to a land it is not enough to speak about land as property. They need to put it as a “special place”, a “holy place”.

The Hamas charter itself is at least good at this point: it clearly shows us that the point of the conflict is not property itself, but the concept of a “special place” for the identity of a people. This is not something so strange to humanity, we don’t live in a World of only material things. We adhere to concepts, we are loyal to ideals. The Muslims have a right to see a land as Holy, just as the Jews have. But everybody knows the holiest land for the Muslims is Mecca, birthplace of their prophet.

So, Hamas just happens to be claiming total rights, with no compromise, over their “second holiest place”, that just happens to be other people’s one and only holy land, for thousands of years. Now who’s expansionist?

And why would the Jews dream with a land? In the twentieth century the whole thing may sound even a little weird to some, but I see it in other way. Reading the Old Testament / Tanakh, which, whether you are religious or not, is at least an ancient group of texts that show the concerns and aspirations of a people during a long period of History, I see the dream of the Jewish people ss a dream of Peace and Union. The Bible says, “I will gather you again in Israel”, do the land is not only land, it is the place where the Jews will be “gathered”.

And seeing through this lens, the whole land thing doesn’t sound so anachronical. How can you have peace and union if you don’t have safety? Considering that the Jews have real reasons to be preoccupied with the safety of their people and their children in this World, given to the many persecutions they faced and that even they good experience in America is not without a dose of insecurity and antisemitism, they need a place to call their own. They need to gather in a place that gives them all the legitimacy ss a sovereign people. Where they are sure that the laws, the institutions will not be suddenly turned against them.

The Jews have good reasons to believe it wouldn’t work in any other place, like, let’s give the Jews this place here in the middle of Europe or something as compensation to the horrors of World War II. At any moment the tide could turn against them as it did many times in History, and someone could claim the “right of return”, saying that the choice for that specific place was arbitrary. Israel is the only place where they can answer to any “right of return” claim with one of the oldest documents in History, that show their identity as a people was built precisely around that land, and nobody else has nothing older or more culturally solid than the Torah.

Countries are not made of paving stone. To keep existing, it is needed that the people see themselves as somehow “in the same boat”. A lot of countries invested resources in affirming a National Identity, in order to create some Unity among the people. Cultural movements even reinvented or changed a little of their countries History to have a solid National Identity. Israelis don’t even have to invent nothing, since the basis for their peoplehood were laid millennia ago, and point precisely to that land. In the uncertain and volatile world we live, and considering that Jews are a small minority, they need something solid and very legitimate to build their sovereignty upon.

Now, of course Arabs and Muslims have the right to have all that too. But they have many sovereign states and nobody is claiming their holiest place. There were many bad things that happened in the 20^th century, but shouldn’t we be glad that the Muslim Arabs didn’t lose what was most important for them, neither did the Jews? And then, start to build a new future…

Hamas insists that there is a Palestinian people with right to return to Palestine. But they are culturally Arab Muslims. Hamas itself, in the charter, insists in the unity of the Muslim people. Of course it is a right they have, but the Jews don’t subdivide their Unity in a lot of sub-peoples to claim different parts of the World as their special places.

That land is clearly singular, and Hamas knows that. We live in a secular world, but this doesn’t mean materialistic. We live in these abstract things called countries, which are mainly dreams we have and defend. Israel should keep existing for mainly two reasons: their documented cultural and religious tie to the land, that is older than any other documented tie, and the fact that they don’t have any other.

Now a war is raging, as an Israeli response to a brutal surprise attack directly aimed at their civilians, and intentionally cruel and depraved. Images of horror overtook the whole country.

And people in the World want it all to stop, they don’t like the pain and death that come with such a war. Of course, who does? So they want peace. Who doesn’t?

But imagine you make a perfect law that nobody can touch a hair of nobody in absolutely any circumstance. That’s beautiful, but in practice, if someone breaks that law, you can do nothing about it because you would be breaking the law too. The role of Law is not to depict how the World would look like in a perfect situation, but precisely to give society the right to use some force in cases where people’s actions go really out of hand, otherwise we can’t keep a common goal of peace.

Of course it is more complex and painful when it comes not to individuals but nations, but the hard truth is that, just as it happens with individuals, if the peaceful and democratic countries swear to never use any force in any situation, what will the bad leaders of the World do?

War is the last resource, after all alternatives have been exhausted, and you know that it is necessary for keeping the hope of peace, and that you are serving the dream of a safer World for everybody.

There needs to be some response to some kinds of aggression. Unfortunately, you can’t just pray it don’t happen again. As for the genocide accusation, to even start to have a case that a country is committing genocide, you either need to show that a country is attacking without being provoked – which is not true given the October 7^th massacre – or that the number of civil casualties is disproportionally high – which is definitely not the case, considering the successes of Israel in this War and the Terrorist leadership eliminated, especially in a war where the enemy is embedded among the civilians more than in any other war known.

Just as the charter sees no limits to “resistance”, it doesn’t see the death of their own people in the process as a bad thing, since Jihad is “honor and duty” of every Muslim, and in their interpretation it includes being ready to die. Considering that, the numbers show that the Idf is working with a high degree of care.

In the Hamas charter, “resistance” is the only thing that matters, and it is by “any means necessary”. So it clearly shows that “liberating” the land with the killing of all Israelis wouldn’t be considered a bad thing. That is, a genocide against Israel would not be a bad thing.

          And they did “a little” of that in October 7^th. You can’t let such attack be considered “successful” by an enemy who is still there, trying to destroy you. The only possible answer is to fight the Terrorists, destroying the enemies’ capabilities for aggression. You act in the most ethical way you can, and you fight until a ceasefire is reached.

And what is a ceasefire? A ceasefire is a cessation of attacks from all sides. There are missiles falling on Israel too, the difference is that Israel is extremely committed to protect the lives of civilians, evacuating people from areas of danger and providing shelters to protect from bombs. Hamas has tunnels too, but normal people can’t get in there to protect themselves.

And, how does it work, the Cessation of attacks from all sides, if your opponent is ruled by a charter that says the main goal is the destruction of your country – by the way, forgive me if I’m blind, but I didn’t really believe there was any other goal there – and this enemy don’t subject himself to any external norm, and surprise attacks and breaking ceasefires are obviously included in “every form of resistance is legitimate?”

Why is so hard to the World to agree that Terrorist groups should surrender? There is nothing in their bag to build peace with.

It is not a situation where both sides are equal. Israel would just have to stop fighting, once peace is achieved. It would not have to surrender its institutions, because they are not aimed at “eradicating any Arab Muslim project from the Middle East”. And this is something to think about: both the Arab Muslims and the Jews are peoples who have deep roots in the Middle East, there is no debate about that. It’s also a region where Jews always had presence. Then why would the Jews have absolutely no place in the Middle East?

I hope it was clear that this essay was not one against Muslims, but against Hamas and other Terror Groups, so I’d like to finish it hoping that the Muslims more and more realize, as the good Muslims already certainly know, that they already have what they need and they should invest in opening doors to each other, and to the World – which would require a good level of deradicalization of some of their people, so they can pursue and achieve peace, happiness, health and prosperity.