Hamas officials are scrambling to halt what has become a broadly acknowledged slide in the organization’s international position and domestic popularity. After making a series of bad gambles – betting heavily on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood being the most damaging – the group finds itself in a tailspin.

Some of the group’s efforts have involved spectacular terror operations coordinated out of the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Other PR efforts have been a bit more direct. The watchdog group MEMRI describes the captions on a cartoon, which is also embedded below:

Following are excerpts from a Hamas cartoon promoting the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on October 11, 2013… The well-organized Al-Qassam army is mightier and more effective… the Al-Qassam Brigades possess missiles, which undermine the Zionist security theory. Their capabilities transcend geographical borders. Today, the Zionist occupation knows who the Izz Al-Din Al-Qaam Brigades are, and it knows that thousands of young fighters are prepared to be martyred for the sake of Allah, until this land is liberated.

Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005. The gesture toward “this land” – which Hamas intends to liberate with its “thousands of young fighters” – is a call for the destruction of the Jewish state. The advocacy aligns poorly with predictions, voiced by analysts and journalists as far back as 2006, predicting that Hamas would moderate as its stature increased.

Recent assertions that Hamas has moderated may also have to be reevaluated, as will similarly timed assertions describing the group as robust and stable.

Broader policy recommendations advocating engagement, which were grounded in the assumption that Hamas would turn from focusing on terrorism to focusing on potholes, may also need to be revisited.