Palestinian Affairs

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The Futile Search for the Moderate Hamas

In a recent analysis for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Ambassador Dore Gold writes that often when the profile of Hamas rises, “there is an effort undertaken to repackage Hamas as a moderate organization.” However, Gold argues, that Hamas’s record – in word and deed – shatters those efforts time and again.

In general, Gold writes:

The fact that Hamas was recognized as an international terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU, the UK, Canada, and many others, did not give those seeking to redefine it any pause. Neither did the fact that on May 2, 2011, immediately after U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden, Hamas’ prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, condemned the United States (it was Haniyeh who sat in the middle at the joint Hamas-Fatah reconciliation ceremony in the Gaza Strip on April 23, 2014).4 Yet, in recent years, a number of Hamas activities and statements point in the exact opposite direction of those analyses that try to soften the image of Hamas.
Hamas’s view of Israel, specifically, has not moderated either.
With respect to Israel, another aspect of Hamas behavior that has not received adequate attention is the increase in genocidal rhetoric against the Jewish people within the Hamas leadership, beyond what is written in the 1988 Hamas Charter, which quotes Hassan al-Bana, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who said: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”
A case in point is a recent opinion column in the New York Times, which asserted that a “Fatah-Hamas unity government is a necessary first step toward a viable solution.” This claim came despite actions by Hamas in recent months that shows that it is as committed as ever to destroying Israel. Late last year Hamas introduced a new anti-Israel curriculum into its schools and encouraged terror in the West Bank. This year, a Hamas officials boasted that the organization’s arsenal could blanket central Israel with missiles and more recently Hamas declared kidnapping Israeli soldiers was a “top priority.” The announcement of the unity agreement was accompanied by a declaration that Hamas would never give up “resistance.”
The clash between the belief in Hamas’s moderation and the hard reality of its extremism was described by The Tower Magazine editor David Hazony in The Moral Quandary That is Hamas, recently published by the Forward.
Israel has suspended negotiations — leaving the door open just in case something really does change in Hamas — and has been given mixed signals by the West at best. Meanwhile the Palestinians have chosen terror, rejectionism, and unilateralism, violating not only of the terms of talks, but of the Oslo framework itself. Israel has negotiated in good faith, while the Palestinians have violated every commitment.

You cannot empower hate and expect peace. There can be no reconciliation with an unchanged Hamas. If the talks before seemed to take place on shifting sands, today we are in a sink hole a mile deep. And Abbas has put us there, knowing he holds all the keys to the entire industry of loathing and violence that fuels the conflict.

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