Hamas: Genocidal Hatred and Jihad against All 'Unbelievers'

On October 7, the terrorist group Hamas initiated deadly attacks against Israel.

Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, near the Gaza Strip. They murdered hundreds of civilians, took hostages (including children and the elderly), beheaded babies, burned people alive, shot children in front of their parents, shot parents in front of their children, and fired thousands rockets and missiles into a country smaller than New Jersey (roughly 22,000 km2). As of this writing, Hamas has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel since October 7; wounded more than 4,200 people, and abducted 199 hostages who were taken to unknown locations in Gaza. Hundreds remain missing.

Hamas, a jihadist organization, has a charter that calls for the obliteration of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people. The US, EU and many other countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organization.

Hamas governs Gaza, where it forcibly expelled the marginally less-extremist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2007. Since Israel's unconditional withdrawal in 2005 from Gaza, where Jews had resided for millennia, Israel has suffered significant violence and terrorism by Palestinian Arabs. Less than two years after the Israeli withdrawal, Hamas in 2007 violently seized control of the Gaza Strip, at times tossing PLO members from the top floors of high buildings.

Even though there are now no Jews left in the Gaza Strip, that is not enough for Hamas. Backed by Iran, Turkey and Qatar, Hamas is now the main organization perpetrating terrorist attacks on civilian targets throughout Israel. On October 7, Hamas breached Israel's security barrier at the Gaza border with explosives and bulldozers, and thousands of Hamas terrorists poured into Israel, launching a massive war.

Hamas's aggression against Israel is not a squabble over land or "settlements." To Hamas and many Palestinians, the whole of Israel is one big settlement that needs to be ripped out by the roots and eradicated. Hamas's attacks against Israelis are simply an expression of genocidal hate and violent jihad towards the Jewish people. Dr. Meir Litvak, a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University's Department of Middle Eastern and African History, noted:

Meanwhile, the Palestinian-Arab leadership has rejected offers for a Palestinian state at least six times in the past 90 years, without so much as a counter-offer: in 1937, 1947, 1967, 2000, 2008 and in 2020. All the offers were made by or accepted by the Jews. Many Palestinians do not really want a state at all: they just want to destroy Israel.

The United Nations, in 1947, proposed a plan to partition the western part of the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine into two sections: an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state. While Jewish leaders accepted the plan, Arab leaders vehemently opposed it. The day that Israel declared its independence, May 15, 1948, five Arab countries invaded it to try to kill it at its birth: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

The reason for the current Palestinian-Arab statelessness is their own political leaders who have rejected all these offers and instead chosen war and terrorism over peaceful coexistence.

Seventy-five years after the establishment of the State of Israel, Muslim fanatics still hope to destroy it. The Center for the Study of Political Islam International notes:

Here are a few examples from these texts:

Islamists across the world do not even hide their jihadist aspirations, which, in their view, are divinely sanctioned. According to Robert Spencer:

On October 7, when a massive pro-Hamas demonstration was held in Istanbul, the participants shouted "Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud". It is the first verse of a jihadist chant and refers to a Muslim massacre of Jews in 628 CE, in the town of Khaybar in northwestern Arabia (now Saudi Arabia), where the army of Islam's prophet Muhammad massacred Khaybar's Jewish population.

The full verse is: "Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Muhammad soufa ya'oud." It translates to "Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return."

Meanwhile, a jihadist preacher in Turkey, Abu Hanzala (aka Halis Bayancuk), endorsed Hamas's attacks and called for the destruction of the Jews, while referring to them as "apes" and "pigs." The Islamic scriptures do the same.

This murderous hate does not solely target Jewish people. Islamic religious sources largely refer to all non-Muslims (kafirs/infidels) with hate and dehumanization.

Dr. Bill Warner details how Islamic scriptures refer to the "kafir":

Meanwhile, Turkey's Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has endorsed jihad multiple times. After Friday prayers at an Istanbul mosque in October 2019, for instance, Erdogan told the congregants:

In 2018, Erdogan wrote on Twitter:

After then US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in 2017, Erdogan said during a Human Rights Day event in Ankara:

Erdogan was referring to a hadith (a supposedly reported saying by Islam's prophet, Mohammed) about Judgement Day:

Nazif Yılmaz, Deputy Minister of National Education, wrote on Twitter on October 11, threatening Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu: "One day they will shoot you too. You will die."

Turkey's Islamist government -- and Iran's and Qatar's -- have for years been a lifeline for the Hamas jihadists.

This author reported in January:

Islamists cannot seem to stomach the fact that Jews, who according to Islamic scriptures are supposed to be dhimmis (second class, "tolerated" subjects of an Islamic state) only, now once again have a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland of Israel and are capable of self-defense.

That is the main stance of political Islam towards Jewish statehood and sovereignty. Political Islam has the same supremacist and hateful view towards other non-Muslims. It is thus of vital significance to address and speak about the source of violent jihad: the Islamic political doctrine.

As the Center for the Study of Political Islam International also points out, once it is understood, potential future attacks and massacres can be predicted, and effective measures taken to ensure everyone's safety. At this time, however, the doctrine is not yet known by enough people. Perhaps many people think it must be similar to other religions, only in Arabic.

The main problem, therefore, is that until the root cause of the jihadi slaughters and abuses against non-Muslims is understood, these attacks are likely to continue and be justified by people who may not know what they are talking about, but do not know that they do not know.

Iran, Qatar and Turkey -- the "heads of the snake" -- must not be allowed to get a pass. They all have to be held accountable. The US should relocate its airbase in Qatar to its real ally, the United Arab Emirates.

Hamas is a problem not only for Israelis and Jews. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said: "The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews." Hamas is part of a problem of global jihad that threatens innocent human lives everywhere, as well as civilization's cultural and intellectual diversity.

As Andrew McCarthy, author and prosecutor of the "Blind Sheikh," Omar Abdel Rahman, who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, put it: "Jihadist war against Israel: It is the reason Hamas exists."

© Gatestone