Special Report No. 27 (December 1, 1999)

The Palestinian Authority's Beliefs = Hamas' Charter

Comparing the Palestinian Authority Opinions and School Textbooks with the Hamas Charter
by Itamar Marcus

Executive Summary:
The Similarity Between the P.A. and Hamas

In Israel it is accepted to differentiate between the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), on the one hand, that supports peace, and between Hamas, on the other hand, as one who opposes peace. However, within Palestinian society, in the education of their children and in the media, a unified ideology on the most substantive issues as pertains to Israel is often presented, including, the denial of Israel's right to exist and defining Israel as the "conqueror of all of Palestine". The religious obligation to destroy Israel, which supposedly is a tenet identified only with Hamas, constitutes the sole attitude toward Israel that appears in textbooks published by the P.A.'s Ministry of Education, and is a recurrent theme in the media, often with the same formulations as in the Hamas Charter.

Positions which contradict the P.A.'s two main undertakings at Oslo, namely the recognition of Israel and the renouncing of violence, are systematically taught in P.A. schools and are presented in the P.A. media. These positions were recently asserted by two senior officials in the P.A and it becoming ever more apparent that the anticipation of Israel's destruction is not only a Hamas position. One of Arafat's aides stated that he was speaking in the name of the Palestinian leadership, when he resurrected the P.L.O. "Phases Plan" saying at a public lecture that "The Palestinian State with its capital in Jerusalem is not the end of the journey" but is only a phase, "after which another phase will follow, notably the Democratic State in all of Palestine"[Arafat's Assistant for National Purpose, Uthman Abu Gharbia, Al Hayat Al Jadida (the official daily of the P.A.), 25 November 1999]. Amad Falugi, the Minister of Communications in the P.A., expressed the same position: "... our nation is full of hope regarding the future and the conquering state [Israel] will not continue to exist, regardless of its strength or its arrogance...".[Al Hayat Al Jadida, 18 November 1999.]

The use of violence as a legitimate means to achieve political ends, a tenet that is identified only with Hamas, also is a fundamental position in the P.A. The head of the Preventive Security apparatus in Gaza, Muhammed Dahlan opposes Hamas terrorist strikes only "at this phase": "We think that military operations at this phase definitely does not serve the national interest and therefore we will not permit any [military] operation, out of emotion ..."[Al Hayat Al Jadida, 14 November 1999] . Farouk Kadumi, head of the Political Department in the P.L.O. also stated recently that that the P.L.O. is currently amassing arms in Lebanon "in order to continue the struggle by all means, when the need arises" [Al Hayat Al Jadida and Al Quds, 23 November 1999]. The internal position in the P.A., which supports, in principle, the use of violence against Israel at times and in quantities that serve Palestinian interests, was recently articulated directly in a cartoon in which the bombing of Israel was presented as the "Palestinian dream". This position received additional expression on the official Internet site of the Fatah movement. "... The Palestinian State will not arise by means of redeployment. A popular confrontation that will remind the Israelis of the Intafada, is the only means to stand against the conceit of the Israeli people, that justifies its actions with the claim that it is the chosen people of God."[The Internet home page of the Fatah Movement, 29 November 1999] .

Even when Israel was suffering from the terrorist strikes of the Hamas suicide bombers, senior P.A. officials defined their cooperation with Hamas as a division of tasks. Hani Alhasan, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, explaining why Arafat refused to implement mass arrests against Hamas, that "the unity is in the nature of construction, and it is incumbent upon us to divide the work among the builders."[Al Ayam, 31 August 1997] Muhamed Dahalan, the head of the Preventive Security Apparatus in the Gaza Strip, said at the time that the presence of Hamas "is important and essential in the cooperation in the building”[Al Risalah, 22 May 1997] . Officials in the P.A. did not conceal their position supporting the terror attacks by the Hamas suicide bombers. When a member of the Legislative Council expressed his condolences to the family of the terrorist who murdered Israelis in the Apropos cafe suicide bombing - "his words were interrupted by the applause of the members of the council" [Al Hayat Al Jadida 27 March 1997].

The distance between the Hamas and the P.A. is, in fact, shrinking, and what emerges is that the only meaningful difference between them, as regards Israel, is the acceptance or rejection of the Oslo process as a vehicle to arrive at common goals.

In the present report, The Palestinian Media Watch presents examples from the many findings that show that all the substantive positions in the "Hamas Charter" are taught in the school textbooks published by the Palestinian Education Ministry, and are expressed by official spokesmen of the P.A. What follows is a table that compares between the beliefs of the P.A. and the corresponding positions in the "Hamas Charter" [The translations of the school textbooks is from the report of the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, www.edume.org and of the Hamas Charter from the Internet site of the Israeli Foreign Ministry]

The Palestinian Authority's Beliefs = Hamas' Charter
Comparing the Palestinian Authority Opinions and School Textbooks
with the Hamas Charter