Greg Bouwer
IINZ
In 1988, Hamas published a charter declaring its goal: the obliteration of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state in all of “Palestine.” Thirty-five years later, on October 7, 2023, Hamas did not merely echo this promise – it enacted it, unleashing a campaign of unspeakable violence, murder, torture, and sexual abuse against Israeli civilians. Yet still, large swathes of the international community look away, deflect, or disbelieve.
The truth is uncomfortable. Hamas tells the world, over and over again, exactly what it intends to do. And it shows us – over and over again – that it means it.
The Words Are Clear
Hamas’s original 1988 Charter states unequivocally:
“Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.” (Article 28)
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” (Article 13)
The charter also includes overtly antisemitic claims, citing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and asserting that:
“The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them…” (Article 7, quoting a hadith also cited by the Islamic State)
In case anyone thought these were dusty relics of the past, Hamas leaders in the modern era have only reinforced them.
In 2017, while releasing a revised policy document for Western audiences, Hamas’s political chief Mahmoud al-Zahar clarified that:
“When we talk about the liberation of Palestine, we are not talking about the 1967 borders. We are talking about all of Palestine, every inch of Palestine.”(Al Jazeera, May 2017)
And after the October 7 massacre, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad was brutally candid:
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe… we must teach Israel a lesson. And we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Flood [October 7 attack] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”(Ghazi Hamad, interview with Lebanon’s LBC, October 24, 2023)
The Actions Are Consistent
When given governance over Gaza after Israel’s 2005 disengagement, Hamas did not build schools or hospitals – it built terror tunnels, amassed rockets, and turned densely populated neighborhoods into launchpads.
On October 7, it proved to the world that its ideology is not theoretical. It is operational.
That day, Hamas terrorists raped, tortured, mutilated, burned, and executed Israeli civilians – men, women, and children – in an orgy of violence that even ISIS condemned. These acts were not collateral. They were the goal.
And again, Hamas leaders boasted of their intentions. In November 2023, senior leader Mousa Abu Marzouk declared:
“October 7 was not the end. It was the beginning of the liberation project… this is a long war that will go through stages… until the land is free, from the river to the sea.”(Al Mayadeen, November 2023)
So Why Doesn’t the World Believe Them?
The answer lies in ideology, not evidence.
In many academic and activist circles, especially in the West, Hamas is viewed not as a terrorist organisation but as a symbol of resistance. The world’s obsession with casting the conflict in post-colonial terms – oppressor and oppressed, coloniser and colonised – has blinded many to the moral clarity of the situation. Hamas has become a repository for projection, a character in someone else’s anti-imperialist drama. Its atrocities are explained away, its genocidal goals ignored.
Add to that the media tendency to focus on images of suffering in Gaza – often without context, often without mention of Hamas’s strategy of embedding itself among civilians – and the narrative flips. Israel, acting in self-defence, is cast as the aggressor. Hamas, responsible for triggering the conflict and prolonging it, is seen as the victim.
This Isn’t the First Time the World Refused to Listen
History is full of examples of the world ignoring extremist movements that announce their intentions. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf years before initiating the Holocaust. The perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide broadcast their plans over the radio. ISIS declared its caliphate and ambitions long before it carried them out in Syria and Iraq.
Each time, the world said ‘we didn’t know.’ But we did. We just didn’t believe them.
We are in the midst of another such moment. Hamas has told us – not once, not vaguely, but repeatedly and explicitly – what it wants. They are not bluffing. They are not exaggerating. They are not ‘just resisting.’ They are telling the truth about who they are and what they will do if given the chance.
Israel Believes Hamas – And So Should You
Israel has no luxury of disbelief. It has seen what happens when Hamas is underestimated. It knows that Hamas’s goal is not a two-state solution but a Final Solution. That is why Israel fights. Not for vengeance. Not for conquest. But for survival.
The international community, particularly those who claim to champion human rights, must come to terms with this reality. There is no peace to be made with a group whose charter is soaked in antisemitism and whose actions echo the darkest chapters of human history.
To deny Hamas’s intent is to betray not only Israel, but the very principles the world claims to uphold. If ‘never again’ is to mean anything, it must start with this: when a terrorist organisation says it wants to commit genocide, we must believe it.
And then act accordingly.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
