Hamas teens. Photo: YouTube.

An Israel-hater tweeted an article to me by a South African defender of Hamas named Suraya Dadoo.

She writes, among other things:

Throughout the four-day visit to South Africa, [Hamas leader] Misha’al spoke at length about an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, based on 1967 borders, with the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. Hamas had committed itself to a just political solution – not merely a “two-state solution” where a Palestinian “mini-state” has its major cities cut off from each other, its government unable to control its own water resources, develop its agriculture, or manage its trade with neighbouring states. In a joint statement, Mary Kluk and Ben Swartz of the SAZF and SAJBD again invoked the Hamas Charter, claiming that “the core ideology of Hamas is underpinned by a rabid hatred of the Jewish people.” Yet, on the day the statement was issued, Misha’al was scheduled to meet progressive Jewish groups in Johannesburg.

“The problem is not Judaism or Jews, it is the occupation,” Misha’al said repeatedly during interviews.

According to Misha’al, the Hamas Charter is no longer a true expression of the movement’s overall vision, and does not reflect the current thinking of the movement. Hamas does not even use the Charter on its website and uses its election manifesto, and more recent documents, to describe its overall vision and objectives. For Israel’s apologists, however, Hamas has not gone far enough, and they demand that the movement formally abrogates the Charter.

Therefore, she writes, Israel should really negotiate with Hamas. (She pretends that Hamas would actually negotiate with Israel!)

So I went to the Hamas website to see the organization’s new, improved and moderate positions, filled with liberal ideas.

It recently issued a press release to mark the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. (Not in English, of course.)

The Hamas movement on this painful anniversary emphasizes the following: First — The Balfour Declaration is unjust and void and unacceptable…

Second — The imposition of such an entity as a fait accompli by force through the expulsion of our people from their land can not change the facts of history and geography, because our people hold the steady and sacred rights and refuse to compromise at all costs.

Thirdly — we affirm our commitment to use the resistance in all its forms, especially the armed resistance as a strategic option is able to deter the occupation and recover the usurped rights and liberate the land and holy places and Al Aqsa and liberating the prisoners.

Fourthly — emphasize the need to enhance the uprising through a unified national consensus in the face of the Zionist attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Fifthly — we call on the leaders of Arab and Islamic countries and all the Liberals in the world to bear the historical responsibility to help our people for liberation from occupation, providing support to our people and pressure the occupation to force them to stop the aggression against our people and leave our land and our holy places.

Sixth — we call upon the international community, especially the international organizations to act to protect Palestinian refugees everywhere, securing a decent life for them in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and to spare them the horrors of internal wars.

Seventh — We applaud the masses of our people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa and our prisoners in Israeli jails, to trigger resistance in every inch of the land of Palestine in defense of the land, honor and sanctities.

Hamas, as always, makes it clear that its goal is the destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from the land. And terrorism is its strategic method to accomplish that.

This is not a new message. Hamas has been remarkably consistent. Yet there are a lot of people who want to try to fool the world into believing that Hamas is not a terror group, despite its own explicit words.