The truth about Hamas sometimes emerges from the hidden tunnels in which the terrorist group has concealed it.  After numerous appearances by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal on CNN television denying that Hamas uses people as human shields to protect its fighters, a Hamas publication found in a tunnel states the opposite.

Among the documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza is a handbook on urban warfare issued by the Shuja’iya Brigade of the Al-Qassan Brigades of Hamas.  It issues instructions to citizens on how to make explosives, on hiding them in places such as television sets and wall mounts, and on planting them in locations that IDF personnel were unlikely to expect.

The handbook recognizes that Israel tries to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties and limits its use of weapons to avoid this.  It also realized that information about such casualties and the destruction of civilian facilities increases the hatred of Israel by Palestinians.  Not surprisingly, except perhaps to some in the mass media, Hamas instructs Palestinians to describe their dead always as “innocent civilians,” and to refrain from indicating that rockets are being launched from populated civilian areas.  No pictures must be shown of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza cities.  A Hamas video directs individuals, “Be sure to humanize the Palestinian suffering.”

Many in the “international community” are hesitant to acknowledge the reality of the tactics of Hamas.  This was noticeable in the remarks of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who informed CNN that the Qataris have “told me over and over again that Hamas is a humanitarian organization.”  Unstated is the fact that this information may come from the heroic Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who lives and operates in Qatar, not in Gaza.  It also ignores the fact that the U.S. administration designated Hamas as a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997.

The mainstream media persist in viewing acceptance of the Hamas conditions, the end of the Israeli “blockade” of Gaza and of limits on border crossings, and the release of prisoners in Israeli jail as essential for a ceasefire to last.  Much sympathy has resulted for an end to the “blockade.”  But two things are pertinent.  One is that the blockade was imposed to prevent the import of material, cement as well as arms, that Hamas might use for military purposes.  The extraordinary discovery of more than thirty tunnels – a sophisticated military infrastructure that has used thousands of tons of cement – for infiltrating Israel amply shows the problem.  In addition, while the terrorists hide in the tunnels, civilians have been used as human shields to prevent Israeli attacks on mosques, hospitals, and schools.

A second issue relates to the thousands of rockets, the exact number perhaps more than 10,000, that Hamas possesses, and more than 3,500 of which have been used in attacks against Israel in the month of July.  The question arises: how did Hamas get those rockets, and from whom, if there was a complete blockade?

Apart from these specific issues, the most important gap in much of the commentary on the Gaza situation is the clear statement on the nature of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad (IJ) movement in Palestine – regardless of whether one considers what is supposed to be the “political wing,” which is supposed to be a moderate, restraining element, or the military units (namely, the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds [Saraya al-Quds] Brigades).  Who is responsible for firing the thousands of rockets, and which group has the main stockpile of weapons?

There is no secret of the objective of these related groups: the destruction of the State of Israel, and the creation of an Islamic state within the borders of the pre-1948 British Mandated Palestine.  The secretary general of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, has declared that he will never accept the existence of the state of Israel, and that “it is our sacred duty to fight.”  The field commander of IJ, the 26-year-old Abu Malek, promotes “the liberation of all Palestine from the sea to the river.”

The clue to the intentions of Hamas is given in the Hamas Charter of 1988, a mixture of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.  Using the Avalon Project translation of the Charter or Covenant, one can discern the stated objectives of Hamas.  Only a few selections, sometimes in oblique language, are necessary to understand this.  Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.  Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.  The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.  The stones and trees will say, "There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him."

The Hamas Charter gives an answer to all the well-meaning groups and individuals who call for a peace conference.  It declares that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day.  Rejecting calls for an international conference to solve the “Palestinian” question, it declares that there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.  Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and are vain endeavors.

The mass media will perhaps be surprised to learn from the Charter that Jews have taken control of the world media, news agencies, publishing houses, and broadcasting stations.  Objective historians may be surprised that Jews have stirred revolutions in various parts of the world and were behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution, and most others.  All this for “sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.”

The Charter informs us of future developments.  The Zionist plan is limitless.  After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates.  The Islamic Resistance Movement must prevent this, and to leave the “circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason.”

The question arises: can members of Hamas, who believe that the “Jews are behind each and every catastrophe on the face of the earth,” be genuinely interested in any possible reconciliation with Israel when destruction of the Jewish state is at the core of their concern?