When the Palestinian Authority, or PA, recently announced its renewed partnership with Hamas, Israel immediately broke off all peace talks with the PA. And for good reason. Any true partner with Hamas is not a true partner of peace with Israel.
Despite occasional claims to the contrary, Hamas still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and Hamas’ hostility to Israel is tangible and palpable, at times demonstrated on a daily basis, as Hamas has used Gaza as a base for terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens, repaying Israel’s return of Gaza to Palestinian sovereignty with thousands of rocket attacks.
Accordingly, America still regards Hamas as a terrorist organization and, therefore, not to be negotiated with. But recent reports indicate that American officials secretly met with Hamas leaders in Egypt to see if there was any change in Hamas’ stance in light of its unity agreement with the PA.
Has Hamas changed its tune?
The answer is categorically no, as a senior Hamas official has reiterated the call for the land of Israel/Palestine to be cleansed of all Israelis. This is what “peace” means to Hamas.
As reported on May 21 by Arutz Sheva’s Israel National News, senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil stated, “Hamas’ platform is known to everyone and is not unambiguous. Any referral to handling the Palestinian issue through peaceful means implies the cleansing of Palestine from foreigners who entered in 1948, before and after this time.”
In other words, the path for peace for Israel and the Palestinians is for every single Jew to leave the land. That is why Israel does not even attempt to negotiate with Hamas, and that is why Israel reacted so strongly when the PA renewed its partnership with Hamas.
Bardawil continued, “All those (foreigners who came to Palestine) must return to where they came from, and then we will extend our peace. We are not hostile, only who attacked us and stole our land. So we understand the meaning of the word ‘peace.'”
To underscore the depth of Hamas’s Israel hatred, they commemorated the State of Israel’s 66th birthday earlier this month with a mock version of Israel’s national anthem, “HaTikvah” (which means “The Hope”), in which, “The Arabic words of the song twisted that message, warning that it is ‘the end of the hope’ for Israel, that Israel was doomed, and that Jerusalem will be renamed and known by its Arabic name, ‘Al-Quds.’ It also threatens to deport Israelis – or, worse, kill them.”
Arutz Sheva calls the video “genocidal” (it can be watched here) and notes that “Several days later, a Hamas children’s show encouraged children to ‘shoot all the Jews.’ And earlier this week, another Hamas publication threatened Israel’s Jews – and immigrants – with genocide via political cartoon.”
It is positively chilling to watch a tiny little girl speak of her desire to grow up and become a policewoman one day so she can kill all the Jews, yet this is what children are being indoctrinated with on the official Hamas TV station in Gaza.
As reported again by Arutz Sheva, “During the show, called ‘Pioneers of Tomorrow,’ young children are interviewed by a young presenter and her ‘bumblebee’ co-host and encouraged to carry out a variety of violent attacks.” (Yes, the target audience is so young that one of the hosts of the show is a bumblebee character.)
When one young girl explains that she wants to be a policewoman when she grows up, the host asks her, “What do the police do?” The co-host replies, “They catch thieves and troublemakers,” to which the host responds, “And they shoot Jews, right?” The little girl replies with a smile, “Yes, I will shoot all the Jews!”
This is the group with whom the PA has renewed its partnership after years of internecine killing, torturing and deadly power plays between their organizations.
Although Hamas leaders claim to have taken on a more secular approach since coming into political leadership in Gaza, and although there is a distinction between their humanitarian, educational wing and their military wing, it was reported in April of this year that Hamas was moving toward an even stricter implementation of Shariah law in Gaza.
And Hamas leaders still acknowledge their 1988 charter as a historical document of relevance, and it is that document that declares that “our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails. Thus we shall perceive them approaching in the horizon, and this will be known before long: ‘Allah has decreed: Lo! I very shall conquer, I and my messenger, lo! Allah is strong, almighty.'”
In light of Bardawil’s recent quotes and in light of what continues to be broadcast on Palestinian TV and proclaimed on videos and in political cartoons, the goal of Hamas remains the same: Peace will only come when every last Jew leaves the land of Israel and the entire land becomes Palestine again, this time (and for the very first time in history) completely Jew-free.
And this is the Palestinian Authority’s partner. What does that say about the PA?
