By Alan G. Futerman & Walter E. Block
Israel is now embarked on a military campaign with but one goal: to destroy Hamas.
So, the first question is, what is Hamas? Hamas is a genocidal, murderous Islamist group founded in 1987 by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. It is funded and supported by Iran, Qatar and Turkey.
On Saturday October 7, 2023 thousands of assassins of this group entered Israeli towns and roads and committed mass murder of the type Jews have not experienced since the Holocaust or Russian pogroms. It is not only that they killed more than 1,400 innocent people, injured over 4,000, kidnapped more than 200 residents, and launched more than 6,000 rockets to Israeli towns and cities. It is also about how they did it, with a level of sadistic detail that is only comparable with the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. They slaughtered innocent men and women (including babies and the elderly) in their homes in cold blood. They tortured parents in front of their children and later executed them with their hands tied behind their backs. They murdered children in front of their parents. They tortured their victims, tearing out eyes and cutting off body parts. They raped women and later executed them. They massacred children and burned entire families alive.
But make no mistake, this horrendous level of destruction of human life was not the exception. For Hamas, it is both the norm and their stated goal, as they have shown again and again with the launching of rockets, suicide bombings and widespread murder of innocent Israelis. The evils of October 7, 2023 diverge only in quantity, severity and intensity, not type of behavior.
The goal of the group is to commit genocide not only against Israelis, but also against Jews as such, wherever they are located in the world. As they declare in their original charter (1988), by quoting Islamic sources (Article 7):
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him…”
Later, the charter says (Article 28):
“Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. “May the cowards never sleep.”
Actually, Hamas’ stated intentions embody the real reason behind the wars against Israel since its founding in 1948. These wars were not, as some Westerners (whether leftists or libertarians) believe, because of land disputes or property titles (where Justice is also on the side of Israel). Hamas would not accept the State of Israel even if the lands under its control were certified by John Locke himself, the philosophical leader in matters of property rights. The charter of Hamas explains why (Article 11):
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day…”
Hamas further declares that (Article 15):
“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.”
Therefore, the purpose of Hamas is not only to eliminate the State of Israel, but also to kill all its citizens, as they themselves claim. Given its genocidal nature (and actions), it makes sense that the charter of Hamas is as Judeophobic as is Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In the charter (Article 22), they talk about the Jews repeating the same murderous myths of the Nazis, as if Jews were a cosmic enemy, concentrating all evil to themselves. Hamas claims that the Jews are behind everything abominable and beyond, from wars to world media to the secret societies. They base all this nonsense on the same forgery that incited murderous pogroms in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (Article 32).
This hatred of Jews is deeply rooted in Palestinian Arab society, especially in the Gaza Strip. This is why there are large parades and sweets are freely given on the streets every time Jews are killed. This is what explains their motivation to mass murder, as they themselves say in their charter (Article 8):
“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.”
This is a movement that loves death and destruction and hates human life and flourishing.
The same maniacal and murderous hatred that Hamas showed in early October appeared in Hebron 94 years ago, when mobs of Arabs murdered, raped and tortured Jews, killing dozens. At the time, there was no state of Israel, no checkpoints, no security fences, no supposed land grabs. There was no nothing. But the same essential hatred, the root of war, existed. Hatred of Jewish presence in the land of Israel, in any form, was still rampant.
Israel’s enemies claim that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the like, appeared because of Israeli actions, such as checkpoints, security fences, or defensive operations. But the causal chain is the very opposite: checkpoints, security fences, and defensive operations by the IDF are the consequence of the Jew-hatred of which Hamas is one type of embodyment. If Hamas disappears, if Jew-hatred disappears, there would be no need for checkpoints, fences, or defensive measures.
Israel’s enemies say that the problem is the “Jewish settlements.” But the intent to destroy Israel predates the time Israel achieved control of Gaza from Egypt in 1967 and persisted after Israel delivered Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, at the cost of expelling its own population. There are now no Jewish settlements in Gaza.
It is also claimed that Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza, which is why this genocide is somehow justified. The truth is that the blockade is of weapons, not of goods. And after the despicable events we’ve recently seen it should be sufficiently clear why there is a blockade of weapons. Egypt also has a border with Gaza, and enforces a similar blockade, but when Israel is not involved nobody seems to care. Moreover, thousands of residents in Gaza had work permits to work in Israel. Some of these, it is suspected, schemed with the assassins to prepare for the pogrom.
Some people claim that Hamas assassins are “freedom fighters”. But the only freedom that Hamas allows and promotes is the freedom to kill Jews. What kind of regime do you think Hamas imposed in Gaza? It is a theocratic dictatorship, that prohibits all freedoms. There is no freedom of expression, of association, of religion, nor of trade. Religious minorities almost don’t exist under its rule and are severely persecuted. Women are treated like garbage and sexual minorities are savagely murdered. Journalists who want to speak the truth are persecuted and political opposition is crushed. This is the type of “freedom” that Hamas supports, the freedom to murder and to die.
Hamas does not at all care for the Palestinian Arabs living under its regime. These people depend on the food, education and health provided by institutions such as the UNRWA, and tens of other Western and Arab organizations. Hamas received billions of dollars which it invested in weapons and material for their military infrastructure, including a massive network of tunnels. They even use water pipes originally intended for civilian infrastructure to build their murderous rockets.
What kind of person could support that idea that this group of maniacs govern a civilian population? Is that to be “Pro-Palestinian”? What do you think the chant “from the river to the see Palestine will be free!” actually means? It is nothing less than genocide for the Jews and medieval dictatorship for Palestinian Arabs. No decent person could support this group of assassins.
Seeing how they treat their own population, it should not surprise anyone that they place their rocket launchers in highly populated civilian areas. That they stockpile weapons in hospitals and mosques. Given their lust for death, it is only obvious that they intend to increase civilian casualties on their side to use as propaganda for their nefarious genocidal ends. Israel, on the other hand, does everything in its power to reduce civilian casualties, from dropping leaflets to sending text messages asking people to leave the buildings from where Hamas is launching its rockets before its defensive operations. If it were the goal of the IDF to commit genocide in Gaza, the area would have been leveled a long time ago, and the operation would have only taken 10 minutes.
Since 2007, Hamas has launched tens of thousands of rockets to civilian areas in Israel. The amount of harm they were able to make was reduced because Israel protects its population with shelters and the Iron Dome that stops many of the murderous rockets in the air. Yet, some Hamas campaigns have been so intense that the IDF had no choice but to launch defensive operations such as in 2008, 2012, 2014, and at other times. The purpose was to stop Hamas attacks.
Those operations were not enough, because the genocidal nature of Hamas will never change. Not only that, but it also gets worse by the day. It is therefore a necessity, not only for Israel, but for Palestinian Arabs themselves, that Hamas be destroyed. And that is why Israel is justified in doing whatever it takes to completely destroy Hamas.
What does whatever it takes mean? The authors of this article are civilians, so we cannot recommend strategy. But what it means is that Israel has a moral right, in fact, a moral duty, to protect its citizens and end this threat once and for all. It means complete, total, Israeli victory. Saying otherwise is not a humanitarian position, but quite the opposite: it is supporting the genocide of Jews and theocratic dictatorship for the Arabs. As long as Hamas exists, Jewish lives are in danger. This must be stopped, and any decent human being should support this course of action.
As it is clear from its own Charter, Hamas’ goal is genocide. Its political system is a medieval theocracy that intends to kill every freedom and bring death and destruction on anyone who does not support its totalitarian agenda. It is funded by Iran, which seeks to impose a global dictatorship under Islamic law. Israel is the exact opposite of these maniacs. It is an open society that loves life and defends human dignity. In a fight between civilization and barbarism, any decent human being should side with Israel. And this implies supporting Israel in its duty to destroy Hamas.
But what about the fact that present Israeli measures, and even more so when the IDF enters ground troops into Gaza, will spell the death of innocent civilians? Not all of them, presumably, voted for Hamas; not all of them danced in the streets upon the deaths of Jews; not all of them celebrated such heinous acts by giving candy to children. Certainly, the Israeli army will not borrow a leaf from Hamas and directly aim at them. This nation has more care for such people than any other. The very opposite will be the case. But it cannot be denied that there will be collateral amongst them; there already is. Should Israel commit suicide by not attacking Hamas at all, in order to avoid this loss of life? Only a bitter enemy of that country and its people would counsel anything of the sort.
Block and Futerman are co-authors of The Classical Liberal Case for Israel. With commentary by Benjamin Netanyahu. Springer Publishing Company
Great article!!