Beginning on Saturday, October 7, Gaza Strip terrorists conducted unspeakable horrors, blatant war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Israeli civilians..The cold-blooded murder of over 1,300 Israelis, the wounding of nearly 3,000 non-combatants, the rape and torture of women, the desecration and parading of dead bodies, the beheading and/or burning alive of infants, the violent hostage-taking of elderly people, women, and children, and the horrific massacre of at least 260 young people at a music festival, much of it intentionally filmed and proudly distributed by the perpetrators, cannot go unpunished..Since the first news of this bloodthirsty invasion of Israel was announced, the media has repeatedly described it as a battle between Israel and Hamas, a counterposition that says ordinary Palestinians had little or no role to play in the massacre..The most recent iteration of this view was made by White House National Security spokesman John Kirby on October 12. According to Kirby, the U.S. is in active conversations with Israel and Egypt to allow for safe passage out of Gaza for civilians: “It’s the civilians who did nothing wrong so we want to make sure they have a way out.”.Really?.How is it going to be remotely possible to separate civilians from combatants in a war where the former are shown immediately cheering the murderous efforts of the latter at home and abroad while deliberately hiding any knowledge of months-long training and planning in one of the most densely packed regions in the world?.Gaza is Hamas and Hamas is Gaza..Hamas, formally called the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a Sunni Islamist political and militant organization that has governing the Gaza Strip since 2007. While it is headquartered in Gaza City, it also has a presence in the West Bank and is widely considered to be the dominant political force” within the Palestinian territories..Its 1998 Charter rejected a two-state solution — one for the Palestinians and one for the Israelis — instead calling for Palestinian armed resistance to end the Israeli occupation and replace it with an Islamic state over the combined territory of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. To do so, it has pursued a policy of almost non-stop jihad (armed struggle) against Israel..The charter’s description of Jews echoes millennia of antisemitic tropes used to persecute the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust: “With their money, they took control of the world media,” reads Article 22, “news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others.”.The 9,000-word document blames Jews for the French and Communist revolutions, World War I and II, and for the Rotary Club and the United Nations, “to enable them to rule the world through them.”.“There is no war going on anywhere,” it reads, “without having their finger in it.”.The Charter directs the killing of Jews, drawing on a hadith (prophetic saying): “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’”.The 2017 Charter softens some of the language but nevertheless rejects a two-state solution..Article 2 reads: “Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.”.Article 18 says:.“The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah [worldwide Muslim community]; it is also in violation of human rights that are guaranteed by international conventions, foremost among them is the right to self-determination..Articles 22 and 25 state: “The liberation of Palestine is the duty of the Palestinian people …. Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.”.The October 7 invasion was only the latest expression of these articles. Accordingly, focusing solely on unbridled Hamas evil to the exclusion of Islamic chauvinism and pervasive antisemitism, as expressed in these Charters, is perversely short-sighted..That establishment of radical Islamic groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organization in the armed struggle against Israel was accepted as “the best thing that happened to the Palestinian people since 1948” was revealed in a public opinion poll published in mid-June 2023. The poll showed Palestinian support for the two-state solution to be very low: approval stood at 28%, and opposition at 70%..The survey also showed 52% of Palestinians believed armed struggle against Israel is the most effective means to end an Israeli “occupation” (that officially ended in 2005) and build a Palestinian state. Twenty-one percent claimed they supported achieving these goals through negotiations, while 22% preferred the “popular resistance,” a close synonym for armed struggle, showing a combined 74% approval of violent conflict..A large majority (71%) expressed support for the formation of armed groups. More than 85% of the respondents said the Palestinian Authority (PA) ruling the West Bank does not have the right to arrest members of armed groups to prevent them from carrying out attacks against Israel..The results also showed that Hamas leader living in protected exile in Qatar, Ismail Haniyeh, remains more popular than PA President Mahmoud Abbas. If presidential elections were held today, Haniyeh would receive 56% of the vote and Abbas only 33%..Haniyeh was spotted with other Hamas officials cheering for joy before they prostrated themselves on the floor and praised Allah on October 7, just like his Gaza followers back home and around the globe..US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a visit to Israel on Thursday, October 12, 2023 opined that the Palestinians have "legitimate aspirations" not represented by militant group Hamas and that, "We know Hamas doesn't represent the Palestinian people.”.The reaction of Gaza and West Banks residents, their supporters around the world, and the polling results just summarized suggest Blinken’s words are rhetorical rubbish..First, the two Hamas Charters claim, “Palestine is the spirit of the Ummah and its central cause; it is the soul of humanity and its living conscience…. Palestine is at the heart of the Arab and Islamic Ummah and enjoys a special status,” showing that the battle is ultimately one between the Jewish people and Moslem Arabs.”.Second, of the 10 conflicts termed wars by the Israeli Ministry of Defense since statehood in 1948, only the last five have been against a Hamas-lead collectivity of Palestinian Arabs. The dozens of other wars and armed conflicts, many preceding 1948, involved confrontations between Israeli settlers and citizens and militias or armies from one or more of the following countries or organizations: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Morocco, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah, and others..The common denominator in all these wars and conflicts was widespread popular opposition to a large and influential Jewish presence in the Middle East based on a combination the widespread belief that Jews have a flimsy claim to a homeland in the Middle East and European-inspired antisemitism..But denying the Jewish right to a homeland in Israel ignores three ironclad claims the Hebrew people have to Israel: the will of God, expressed throughout the Old Testament, some verses even exactly detailing the boundaries of the Promised Land; the 1917 Balfour Declaration which argued that a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population, deserved renewal; and the 1947 United Nations vote to partition Palestine between Jewish and Arab sections..More particularly, undisputed archaeological, historical, and genetic evidence also shows an uninterrupted residence of Jews in the Promised Land since Biblical times: there was never a time when there were no Jews or Jewish communities in the ancient land of Israel. From the beginning of recorded history to the present, Israel has been the only indigenous sovereign state west of the Jordan River. Conversely, the Arab-speaking residents of modern Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip whose ancestors have lived there for hundreds of years never composed a locally controlled sovereign nation..Fake Palestinian history, reinforced by Islamic antisemitism, deny these inconvenient truths..The Koran, a book with equivocal and contradictory views about Jews and Judaism, nevertheless contains many blatantly antisemitic passages such as: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement” (Chapter 5.33)..The politicization of such beliefs has been around since the 7th century. Its modern Palestinian application blossomed during World War II..In 1941, the powerful Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, fled to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders and tried to persuade them to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish policies to the Arab world. He was partly successful in doing so. In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. He escaped from French detention in 1946, however, and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut..There were close ties between al-Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood, forerunner of Hamas, resulting in a line of antisemitism and violence from the Nazis to Hamas..In 2014 the Anti-Defamation League published a global survey of worldwide antisemitic attitudes, reporting that in the Middle East, 74% of adults agreed with a majority of the survey's eleven antisemitic propositions, including that "Jews have too much power in international financial markets" and that "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars," propositions straight out of Nazi and Hamas propaganda..None of these hateful, even murderous, Palestinian beliefs and practices means that there should be a tit-for-tat indiscriminate and beastly killing of Palestinians when the Israeli Defense Forces enter Gaza to destroy Hamas. What it does mean is that the Palestinian people have blood on their hands when it comes to their antisemitic and xenophobic support of the indiscriminate killing of Jews whenever and wherever their genocidal leaders have decided to do so..Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba.
