The Hamas Covenant 1988
Take Hamas at their word.
The 1988 “Hamas Covenant” is a manifesto along the lines of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Hitler’s Mein Kampf. This rambling 9000-word document states Hamas intent to eradicate the Jews through armed Jihad; expunge the territory of Israel; introduce the Islamic State of Palestine (while referencing Sharia Law) and to even to obliterate non-Islamic organizations & Jews in other countries.
The most important 2 sentences in the 1988 Hamas Covenant are the “Slogan” and “Objectives”:
Slogan
“Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
Objectives
“They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper.”
(The 2017 “Revision” is more politically correct but did not repeal the 1988 document. You can read it by following the LINK.)
Below are grouped excerpts so you can read Hamas’ exact words in relevant categories. Read them through the lens of the October 7# attack and take Hamas at their word.
Hamas refer to themselves throughout the Covenant by the official title: “the Islamic Resistance Movement” [IRM]. “Hamas” is an acronym of the Arabic phrase حركة المقاومة الإسلامية or Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement". This acronym, HMS, was later glossed in the Hamas Covenant by the Arabic word ḥamās (حماس) which itself means "zeal", "strength", or "bravery".[Wiki]
JIHAD
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
“The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.”
“Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Moslem, male or female.”
“The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men. Her role in guiding and educating the new generations is great…rearing the children and embuing them with moral values and thoughts derived from Islam. She has to teach them to perform the religious duties in preparation for the role of fighting awaiting them.” (sic)
“Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake.”
“…till Allah's purpose is achieved when ranks will close up, fighters join other fighters and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty while loudly proclaiming: Hail to Jihad.”
SHARIA LAW
“This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.”
“Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void.”
TERRITORY OF ISRAEL / “PALESTINE”
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" [Imam Hassan al-Banna, quoted in the Covenant]
The claim is that the territory of Israel was conquered by Muslims and then became ‘consecrated’ in perpetuity.
“This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.”
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”
RELIGIOUS CLAIM TO JERUSALEM & ISRAEL
“It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. Palestine contains Islamic holy sites. In it there is al-Aqsa Mosque which is bound to the great Mosque in Mecca in an inseparable bond as long as heaven and earth speak of Isra` (Mohammed's midnight journey to the seven heavens) and Mi'raj (Mohammed's ascension to the seven heavens from Jerusalem).”
“It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region.”
al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem.
“Palestine is an Islamic land which has the first of the two kiblahs (direction to which Moslems turn in praying), the third of the holy (Islamic) sanctuaries, and the point of departure for Mohamed's midnight journey to the seven heavens (i.e. Jerusalem). Since this is the case, liberation of Palestine is then an individual duty for very Moslem wherever he may be.”
Historical perspectives: Jews have been indigenous to this area since Abraham & Isaac in 1900 BC. Islam started in ~610 AD. The Covenant mentions the al-Aqsa Mosque but omits to mention older Jewish holy sites, such as the First Temple / King Solomon’s Temple, which was probably at the Temple Mount site, 2600 years ago.
VILIFICATION OF JEWS
“The society that confronts a vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism, making no differentiation between man and woman, between children and old people - such a society is entitled to this Islamic spirit. Our enemy relies on the methods of collective punishment. He has deprived people of their homeland and properties, pursued them in their places of exile and gathering, breaking bones, shooting at women, children and old people, with or without a reason. The enemy has opened detention camps where thousands and thousands of people are thrown and kept under sub-human conditions. Added to this, are the demolition of houses, rendering children orphans, meting cruel sentences against thousands of young people, and causing them to spend the best years of their lives in the dungeons of prisons.”
“In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children…They attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money and threatening their honour. They deal with people as if they were the worst war criminals. Deportation from the homeland is a kind of murder.”
“…they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others…they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about…”
“They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations…They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments…It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”
“There is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one's country, the dispersion of citizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values.”
VILIFICATION OF NON-ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS & COUNTRIES
“…using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs…The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.”
“The imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East, support the enemy with all their might, in money and in men…The day Islam appears, the forces of infidelity would unite to challenge it, for the infidels are of one nation.”
“With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.”
“WORLD ZIONISM”
“World Zionism, together with imperialistic powers, try through a studied plan and an intelligent strategy to remove one Arab state after another from the circle of struggle against Zionism, in order to have it finally face the Palestinian people only.”
“Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle, through the treacherous Camp David Agreement.”
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
REJECTION OF PEACEFUL SOLUTIONS
“Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.”
“Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question…the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters.” (sic)
REJECTION OF LESS MILITANT ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS
“The Islamic Resistance Movement is a fighting movement that has a moral and enlightened look of life and the way it should cooperate with the other (movements).”
“The Islamic Resistance Movement respects these movements…It encourages them as long as they do not give their allegiance to the Communist East or the Crusading West.”
Rejection of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
“Because of the…ideological confusion prevailing in the Arab world as a result of the ideological invasion under whose influence the Arab world has fallen since the defeat of the Crusaders and which was, and still is, intensified through orientalists, missionaries and imperialists, the Organization adopted the idea of the secular state. Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. That is why, with all our appreciation for The Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into - and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea.”
(The PLO is a coalition of many groups: in 1993 they recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Oslo Accords and are looking for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.)
EDUCATIONAL & CULTURAL RE-PROGRAMMING
“It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the Islamic movements, should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses). It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum, to cleanse it of the traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the region following the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah el-Din (Saladin).”
“Art has regulations and measures by which it can be determined whether it is Islamic or pre-Islamic (Jahili) art. The issues of Islamic liberation are in need of Islamic art that would take the spirit high, without raising one side of human nature above the other, but rather raise all of them harmoniously an in equilibrium…Islamic art addresses man on this basis, while pre-Islamic art addresses the body giving preference to the clay component in it.”
“The book, the article, the bulletin, the sermon, the thesis, the popular poem, the poetic ode, the song, the play and others, contain the characteristics of Islamic art, then these are among the requirements of ideological mobilization, renewed food for the journey and recreation for the soul.”
“Writers, intellectuals, media people, orators, educaters and teachers, and all the various sectors in the Arab and Islamic world - all of them are called upon to perform their role, and to fulfill their duty, because of the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control, as well as the consequences that all this lead to in the greater part of the world.”
FAINT REASSURANCE FOR OTHER RELIGIONS
“The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions.”
“Islam confers upon everyone his legitimate rights. Islam prevents the incursion on other people's rights.”
“Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other.”
No one should have to live under the wing of Hamas.
Kevin Hay
(You can follow Kevin on 𝕏 — formerly Twitter — @ kevinhay77)