Don't read this while drinking if you don't want Coke all over your keyboard.
The question I have faced most frequently since returning to Gaza in 2006 is this: does the Hamas charter, which contains passages deemed offensive to Jewish people, truly represent the movement’s vision and political goals?...This was a text written in the early days of the first intifada. Our youth rebelling against the Israeli occupiers needed a rallying cry – a written expression of their resolve. The charter was designed to be that inspirational document and it was never intended to be the governing instrument, the guiding principle or the political vision of the movement.See? They don't want to really exterminate the Jews - they just wanted to gain enthusiastic members by claiming that they want to exterminate the Jews!
Were pundits to truly scrutinise Hamas’s actions since its inception, they would find not a single official statement or position that is based on denigrating another faith, certainly neither Judaism nor Christianity. Nor can anyone produce a shred of evidence that Hamas formally encourages prejudice against anyone’s ethnicity.Classic!
And the group has been far more conscious of avoiding civilian casualties than the Israelis.Stop it, you're killing me!
(This Hamas video admits that the target of the mortars is the "settlement" of Erez, not soldiers.)
(Another one supposedly shows the rocket that targeted Ben Gurion Airport. Which is a civilian target.)
Judge Hamas on the measures it takes for its people. Do not rely on the words of a document – the charter – written under entirely different circumstances. Declare it dead, some have said; and yet, to do so would be to succumb to yet another Israeli demand. We do what is right, not what we are told by an occupier.So all Israel has to do is demand that Hamas manufacture rockets to aim at Israeli citizens. Then Hamas will be forced to stop rather than succumb to an Israeli demand!
Pure comedy gold.
Even most Guardian commenters aren't buying this, although some of course will drink anti-Israel Kool-Aid no matter how poisonous the source.