Anyone ignorant of Hamas’s ingrained hatred for Jews would probably be surprised by Hamas latest outburst as reported in Reuters.
We shouldn’t be, it is plain enough in their Charter.
Even Khalid Mashaal couldn’t miss out on a bit of Holocaust revisionism in 2008 when being interviewed by Sky News:
“We don’t deny the holocaust.
But, we believe the Zionists have exaggerated the numbers to get sympathy from other nations.”
AP reports a Hamas official as saying the Holocaust “is a big lie.”
Whilst Reuters’ coverage is softer it conveys a similar message:
“(Reuters) – The Hamas Islamist group in charge of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday denounced a Palestinian official’s visit to the site of a Nazi death camp in Poland, and called the Holocaust in which 6 million European Jews perished an “alleged tragedy.”
Ziad al-Bandak, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who governs in the occupied West Bank, had made a rare visit by a Palestinian official to the site of the Auschwitz death camp late last month.
“It was an unjustified and unhelpful visit that served only the Zionist occupation,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas. Hamas rejects Israel’s existence and interim peace accords reached by Abbas’ more moderate Fatah group with Israel.
Barhoum further called Bandak’s visit to Auschwitz, a camp where the Nazis killed 1.5 million people, most of them Jews but also other Polish citizens, during World War Two, as “a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy.”
He said he saw this as coming “at the expense of a real Palestinian tragedy,” alluding to Israel’s control over territory where Palestinians live and seek to establish a state.
Israel was founded as a Jewish state in 1948, several years after the wartime genocide occurred.
Islamist extremists have taken to denying the Holocaust happened as part of a narrative rejecting Israel’s existence, often at the encouragement of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the genocide “a myth.” “
(H/T: Thanks to Jeremy Moodey for pointing me to this story).
Update 1: Jeremy has asked me to clarify the racism in Hamas’s Charter I am happy to oblige.
This handy ADL guide brings out some of the Charter’s low points:
“
Adopted in August 1988, the Hamas Charter openly embraces the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” holding it up as evidence that Jews are innately greedy, manipulative and conniving, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The charter adopts classical anti-Semitic canards: Jews as plotting to control the world, Jews acquiring wealth by stealing, and Jews controlling the levers of power in media, government and finance. Such stereotypical anti-Semitic canards have been used through the centuries to defame and demonize Jews, leading to violence, pogroms and, ultimately, the Holocaust.
“The Hamas credo is not just anti-Israel, but profoundly anti-Semitic with racism at its core,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The Hamas Charter reads like a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf.’
“Any discussion about whether Western governments should or shouldn’t deal with a Hamas-led Palestinian government must not ignore the Jew hatred that is at the core of their belief system, and that none of their leaders has renounced. Hamas wants to present a moderate face to the West, when in fact they are anything but moderate,” added Mr. Foxman.
Aside from its embrace of virulently anti-Semitic myths, the Hamas Charter is replete with conspiracy theories about Jews through history. The Charter blames “world Zionism” for the French and Communist Revolutions, World War I, and the establishment of the United Nations, which it claims was created by Jews “in order to rule the world by their intermediary.”
Selected Excerpts: The Hamas Charter
•”The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him…”
•”The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people’s livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor … They took advantage of key elements in unfolding events, and accumulated a huge and influential material wealth which they put to the service of implementing their dream ….”
•(Jews) control of the world media (and use their) wealth to stir revolutions … They stood behind the French and the Communist Revolutions.”
•”There was no war that broke out anywhere without their (Jews’) fingerprints on it.”
” [My emphasis.]
Also see Hamas in their own words.
Soupy One 