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Particulars of the errors Israel made main as much as the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 are coming to mild. Israeli investigative reporter Ronen Bergman has just lately printed two jaw-dropping articles about how a lot Hamas knew and the way Israeli intelligence warnings had been ignored—due to the mistaken “idea” that Hamas might be domesticated and remodeled into a comparatively tame authorities. This isn’t to say “I advised you so,” however I met with the founders of Hamas in 1988, lower than a yr after the fear group was based. Even then, it was clear the place they stood. Right here’s an excerpt from my e-book Why Are We Nonetheless Afraid? about that assembly:
It was summer time 1988. We had been sitting in a cramped workplace, extra like a closet, simply off a darkish hall within the Islamic College in Gaza Metropolis, a block-like constructing with inexperienced hallways and cement flooring, the nerve middle of Hamas.
The opposite folks within the room, sipping espresso, buying and selling cigarettes and jokes, had been two of the founders of Hamas—Mahmoud Zahar, a doctor, and Atef al-Adwan, a professor on the Islamic College.
Outdoors on the dusty, steaming streets and rutted paths of poverty-stricken, overcrowded Gaza, Palestinians had been battling Israeli troopers with rocks, bottles, and firebombs. The primary “intifada,” or rebellion, had erupted within the winter, resulting in the emergence of Hamas, an Arabic anagram for the Islamic Resistance Motion.
Hamas was a complete new idea for combating Israel. The PLO, Israel’s prototype enemy for many years, paled as compared.
A fast learn via the Hamas constitution revealed deep hatred for Israel, Jews, and Zionism from an Islamic non secular perspective that made the PLO’s political hatred appear to be the mere barking of a junkyard canine.
The Hamas constitution
The constitution begins with a quote from the Quran in regards to the Jews: “They’ve incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them. That’s as a result of they disbelieve the revelations of Allah, and slew the Prophets wrongfully. That’s as a result of they had been rebellious and transgress.”
Hamas’ constitution goes downhill from there, stooping even to mentioning the infamous 1905 antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Realized Elders of Zion,” and blaming Jews for all that’s unsuitable with the world within the traditional mildew of centuries of Jew-haters.
“They (the Jews) additionally used the cash to determine clandestine organizations that are spreading all over the world, so as to destroy societies and perform Zionist pursuits. Such organizations are: the Freemasons, Rotary Golf equipment, Lions Golf equipment, B’nai B’rith and the like. All of them are damaging spying organizations,” the constitution mentioned. “There was no conflict that broke out anyplace with out their fingerprints on it.”
And there I used to be in a small room in a Hamas stronghold with two of the group’s most important movers. Did they know that apart from being an American radio reporter, I used to be an Israeli and a Jew?
In all probability. By means of the years, as I walked down streets or open-air markets within the West Financial institution and Gaza, microphone in hand, a tape recorder with a CBC Information label hanging prominently throughout my stomach, somebody would yell out in Hebrew, “Hey, Moses, what’s taking place?” to see if I’d react.
But it surely didn’t matter. To Adwan and Zahar, anti-Semitism was institutional, not private. I used to be in no hazard.
They chuckled with me in regards to the unusual means Egyptians communicate English, including additional syllables to phrases. “Actual-ee-ly,” Zahar chortled. “Actual-ee-ly.”
After which they defined to me why there have to be no Jewish state within the Mideast. The Quran mentioned the entire space is Islamic. Interval.
Jews (like me) who got here from some place else should go house. Jews who lived in Palestine earlier than the state of Israel was based in 1948 might stay. They might be protected and cared for as an honored minority—with restricted rights, after all, since solely Islam can rule right here.
The Jews weren’t the issue, they mentioned. It was Israel and Zionism. All the things was high-quality till Israel and Zionism got here alongside and stole their land. Earlier than that, they mentioned, ignoring the massacres of Jews in 1929 and 1936, everybody bought alongside. It might be that means once more if solely Israel would stop to exist.
“The Islamic Resistance Motion is a definite Palestinian motion which owes its loyalty to Allah, derives from Islam its lifestyle and strives to boost the banner of Allah over each inch of Palestine,” the constitution mentioned, referring to Israel, the West Financial institution and Gaza. “Solely below the shadow of Islam might the members of all areas coexist in security and safety for his or her lives, properties and rights.”
In kindergartens and faculties Hamas arrange in Gaza, youngsters had been being taught to see the world via the blinders of the operative verses of the Quran: Israelis had been non-believers and usurpers who have to be fought and killed. Jihad was the one means.
The message was readily absorbed among the many pitifully poor folks within the dusty territory.
Gaza grew to become a fertile discipline for rising suicide bombers among the many hopeless youth who confronted a stateless existence trapped in a seaside hellhole with no future.
Now [in 2006], practically 20 years later, Hamas has stunned itself and received a parliamentary election, placing itself within the place of official energy within the West Financial institution and Gaza. And now the world is questioning—do they actually imply all that?
The constitution shouldn’t be an outdated, dusty doc written by an idealistic founding technology to be memorized in school rooms however forgotten in observe, just like the US Declaration of Independence. The general public who wrote it are nonetheless round (some have been assassinated by Israel). The constitution guides them as a result of it sums up their core beliefs.
However they’re affected person. They acknowledge that there’s a highly effective state of Israel, and they’re comparatively weak. They provide Israel a long-term cease-fire if it can simply get out of all the West Financial institution, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians would set up a state there and bide their time till the inevitable victory of their model of Islam:
“The time is not going to come till Muslims will battle the Jews and kill them; till the Jews disguise behind rocks and bushes, which can cry: O Muslim! There’s a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”
The deepest-held beliefs of Hamas dictate Israel’s destruction. It’s only a matter of timing.
Will they attempt to ship waves of suicide bombers into Israel after they take workplace, whereas they’re cleansing up the corruption-plagued Palestinian authorities or society? Or will they deal with removing of Israel solely after they’re firmly in management in a couple of months or years?
When. Not if.
Mark Lavie has been overlaying the Center East for main information retailers since 1972. His second e-book, Why Are We Nonetheless Afraid?, which follows his five-decade profession and involves a stunning conclusion, is on the market on Amazon.
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