Will the Real Jihadis Please Stand Up?

If you've been reading Zionist propaganda emissions on the 'events' in Gaza, whether in the press or on the Internet, you'll know that the Islamic resistance movement there, Hamas, is not only an existential (aren't they all?) threat to Jewish Israelis but to the Palestinians of Gaza as well, uniquely responsible for every Palestinian death and maiming.

Invariably, at some point, the propagandist will invoke the dreaded Hamas Charter (apparently a document so toxic, it's up there (or should that be down there?) with those other anti-Semitic frights, Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion).

One such recent (7/8/14) emission, by the Herald's Paul Sheehan, for example, Jihad now built into the fabric of Arab world, introduces the Hamas Charter with the following drumroll:

"Why would Hamas, having taken control of Gaza's 1.8 million population with its host of social needs commit so much of its resources to building strategic tunnels into Israel and stockpiling weapons? [You're not, of course, supposed to answer with the bleeding obvious: because the Gaza Strip is under siege by a genocidal, apartheid entity bent on wiping Palestine (and Palestinians) off the map.] The answer is clear. The covenant of Hamas is unambiguous. It lays out its goals, and its actions have been entirely consistent with those goals:... 'In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of jihad be raised... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by jihad...'"

Jeeeeeehad!

You know how it goes with the odious, Islamophobic Sheehan. Seizing on the good old 'J' word - "the common denominator... is the call to jihad" - he blithely goes on to conflate Hamas with the jihadi cutthroats of ISIL, thus absolving Israel (or nearly so) of blame for its murderous rampage in Gaza.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, let's open the 1988 Hamas Charter to see what's really driving the jihad - or struggle - of Hamas against Israel:

"[Palestinian] society... opposes a vicious Nazi enemy in its behaviour, which does not differentiate between men or women, elder or youth... Our enemy uses the method of collective punishment, robbing the people of their land and property, and chasing them in their migration and places of gathering. They purposely break (bodily) bones, fire (live ammunition directly) at women, children, elders (sometimes) with a reason or without a reason, create concentration camps to place thousands (of people) in inhuman conditions, not to mention the demolition of homes, orphaning of children, and issuance of tyrannical laws on thousands of youth so they spend their best years in the obscurity of prisons. The Nazism of Jews has included women and children. Terror is for everyone, they frighten people in their livelihood, take their wealth, and threaten their honor. They, with their shocking actions, treat people worse than they treat the worst of war criminals. Deportation from one's land is a form of murder." (Journal of Palestine Studies, Summer 1993)

Considering that the Charter was issued in 1988, during the first intifada, it is quite remarkable how the Israeli genocidal behaviours listed are not only still on display today, but have taken on ever more extreme and destructive forms. The above passage (and what we are witnessing in Gaza today on our television screens) surely begs the question: which is it that most closely resembles the rampaging Islamic State maddies of Syria and Iraq, Hamas... or the Jewish caliphate of Israel?