A surprising number of American organizations and politicians have come out against Israel in the recent fighting. They almost always say they are standing with Palestinians, not Hamas. But that’s like coming out against the United States in World War II, claiming you only support Germans, not Nazis. 

Hamas runs Gaza. In the month of May, Hamas fired more than 4,000 missiles into Israel from Gaza. But Israel did not return fire with an all-out assault on the Palestinians of Gaza. They struck military targets. And, yes, they struck them hard. In a matter of days, Israel substantially degraded Hamas’s ability to wage their war of terror. For that, millions now blame Israel.

What is Hamas? Why have Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, and the United States designated Hamas a terrorist organization? Why have other nations, such as Australia, New Zealand, Paraguay, and the United Kingdom, designated Hamas’s military wing a terrorist organization? And remember, it was their military wing firing rockets at Israeli children.

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These nations designated Hamas a terror group because terror is the organization’s chief tactic, and violence is its mode of operation. Hamas’s violence goes back to its very beginning. The preamble to their charter says, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”

The eradication of Israel is their goal. They don’t just want to win a military victory over Israel or carve out a Palestinian state. Hamas wants nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish people. Genocide is their aim and reason. How could you describe Hamas as anything but a terror group?

In Article 32 of their charter, they say that the Jew’s “scheme has been laid out in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’” The protocols are a hoax first published in Russia in 1903. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, the protocols began to be taught in German schools. But it was proven false early on. For one thing, you can trace much of the source material to known works of fiction. But for Hamas and its supporters, anything against Jews must be true.

The Hamas charter depicts Jews using old stereotypes. Article 22 blames the Jews for World Wars I and II, as well as the French and communist revolutions. This illustrates yet again that their hatred is not for Israel alone, but for Jews generally. Article 7 says, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems 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.’”

Hamas stands firmly against a negotiated peace in the Middle East. Article 13 says, “So-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam… There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.”

Article 11 says, “The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [meaning ‘Holy Possession’] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.”

Hamas stands for unending violence, war, and terror. To those Americans who have placed themselves in solidarity with Hamas, I have to ask, “Are you for peace or for never-ending jihad?”