In order to fully understand the current Israeli-Hamas conflict, one must accept a single, indisputable, obvious truth: Hamas hates the Jewish people. And that hate is so obvious and so open that it’s even codified in the organization’s founding document.
The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which was issued on August 18, 1988, contains 36 articles which outline the movement’s mission, its goals, and its truly staggering antisemitism.
In the second paragraph of the document’s preamble, Hamas makes clear that destroying Israel is its primary objective, writing that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
This confers upon Hamas members the duty of “jihad,” or holy war against both the nation of Israel and the Jewish people more generally.
Also from the preamble:
Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised.
Both the destruction of Israel and wholesale slaughter of Jewish people are not just goals, they’re commands from Allah himself.
Article Seven of Hamas’ charter makes this clear:
The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
"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. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
The duty of jihad against the Jewish people is such a central part of Hamas that peace is quite literally impossible. Article Thirteen posits that
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion.
As if this wasn’t clear enough, Article 13 goes on:
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. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.
Article Fifteen reiterates the idea that the only peace can be through the destruction of Israel via jihad.
The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.
To inspire the Muslim world to raise this banner, Hamas compares Jewish people to, ironically, the Nazis. Article Twenty:
The Islamic spirit is what should prevail in every Moslem society. The society that confronts a vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism, making no differentiation between man and woman, between children and old people - such a society is entitled to this Islamic spirit.
In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children. Their policy of striking fear in the heart is meant for all. They attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money and threatening their honour. They deal with people as if they were the worst war criminals.
In Article Twenty-Two, Hamas engages in the basest of antisemitic canards:
With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there.
With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
This frames jihad not only as a battle to retake the land of Palestine that Hamas members believe to be rightfully theirs, but rather as a global conflict against Jewish people everywhere.
As Article Thirty-Two concludes:
The Islamic Resistance Movement consider itself to be the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism and a step on the road. The Movement adds its efforts to the efforts of all those who are active in the Palestinian arena. Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews.
In order to understand the current Israel-Hamas conflict, one must first understand who Hamas is and what it stands for. This is not, as it hopes you believe, a group that just wants a return to old borders or and end to new settlements. It is a movement that has as its very founding principles the destruction of Israel and the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish people.
To understand the current conflict—and every conflict—between Israel and Hamas, one must first understand and accept that the central tenets of Hamas are war and hate; not for a country per se, but rather its people.