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Extreme Anti-Jewish Motifs on the Hamas Movement’s Web Site

Author: Published on: Published in: Commentaries
For several months, Hamas has been operating an official web site in Arabic on the Internet. The site includes a number of different sections, which give basic information, transmit notices to the press, and communicate the organization’s aims and beliefs. The site also publishes Islamic anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli literature, as well as the newsletter “Filastin al Muslimah” in English, and other propaganda against Israel and against the Palestinian Authority.

A new section has recently been added entitled “Zionist Terror” which includes a large number of “scientific” articles of an extreme anti-Jewish nature–in the spirit of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. On occasion, they even refer to the “Protocols” as historical reference.

Some of the articles in this section of the site are not new and have appeared in the past in the Muslim Brotherhood papers or other sources in the Arab world. The central theme in most of them is the Jewish people (not necessarily Israel as a state, or Zionism as a political movement), presented in a demonic light, as a nation whose only ambition is to control the world by calculated violent terrorist methods. According to the doctrine presented by the Hamas on its site, Jewish terror has a solid ideological base, which has its origin in the Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael in the days of Joshua Ben-Nun’s in Biblical times. Its climax is the precise planning practiced by the Zionist Movement and the State of Israel, as laid out by the “Protocols”.

The inherent danger in Hamas’ site is its ability to spread its extremist messages–in real time–into every home in the Arab world (at least those connected to the Internet), as well as those within the boundaries of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Arab community. There is a combination here of so-called “scientific” articles, based on quotes from the Bible, the Islamic heritage and authoritative religious scholars in the Arab world. This gives the written material the appearance of religious sanctity, thus transforming the anti-Jewish interpretation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hamas–in the eyes of a large section of the public–into a message that purports to be an integral part of Islamic doctrine.

The anti-Jewish message conveyed by the Hamas is an essential part of its struggle against Israel and the Jewish people all over the world and, in many respects, is very similar to Nazi propaganda. In the eyes of the Movement and its leaders, this message is fundamental to the training of its “soldiers”–those recruited to carry out vicious terrorist actions against innocent civilians, even at the price of their own lives, as in the case of Hamas’ infamous suicide attacks.

author

Reuven Paz was born and grew up in Israel. He graduated his academic education in Haifa University in the fields of Arabic language and literature and Middle Eastern Studies, specializing on Islam and modern Islamic thought, and is fluent in written and spoken Arabic.  Most of his studies, research, and field of experience in the past 35 years focused on Islam, Islamic culture, Islamic radicalism, development of radical Islamic doctrines, all over the world, and Palestinian society both in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. His research combines academic work with a long field experience.  In 2003, he founded the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM – www.e-prism.org) in the GLORIA Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, which he directs. PRISM focuses on research in the field of Islamic radical movements and ideology and global Jihad. In 2006, PRISM has opened a special research project for radical Islam in Africa, and in 2007 a research project on Islamist social affairs. Reuven Paz has published so far dozens of articles in the fields of Palestinian society and politics, global Jihad, and radical modern phenomena in Islam. He also gave 18 expert testimonies in courts in cases that involved terrorism. His forthcoming book is on “The Mindset and Culture of Global Jihad.”

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