Woe unto them that call evil good
and good evil;
that change darkness into light,
and light into darkness;
that change bitter into sweet,
and sweet into bitter.

- Isaiah 5:20

The vitriolic anti-Zionism of Ronnie Kasrils might be naïve, or it might be a crude; but it is his view, and he must be respected for that. Kasrils, after all, belongs to a long list of Jewish internationalists and so-called cosmopolitans who have refused to countenance the notion of Jewish national liberation. But to bat for Hamas is another matter. Surely his hatred of Israel cannot blind him to the true nature of this movement.

Two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas forcibly removed the ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) from power and subsequently controlled the territory with an iron fist and without a hint of democracy. Opposition is not tolerated, and plans are opaque - hardly surprising for a movement whose main objective is the “liberation” of all Palestine by any means. Hamas does, however, parade its Islamist ideology.

Its original 1988 Charter was replete with negative images of the Jew, calls to jihad and Koranic terminology and its aims were clear: the destruction of the Jewish state. Articles in the Charter borrowed liberally from western antisemitism. Among them was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous and fabricated document that provides supposedly incontrovertible evidence of the existence of a Jewish plot to dominate the world. Hamas treated it as a blueprint for Zionist intentions. Its conspiratorial mindset - proudly spelled out in Article 22 - was not hidden:

For a long time, the enemies [the Jews] have been planning, skilfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. 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.

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world.

They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

Since its founding, Hamas - a offshoot of the discredited Muslim Brotherhood - has been at loggerheads with the PA, now under Mahmoud Abbas. It would not countenance recognition of Israel and envisaged a Palestine liberated from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea - understood as a religious duty. Hamas rejected the 1993 Oslo accords that initiated Palestinian-Israeli cooperation.

It was largely responsible for a wave of suicide bombings in Israel that damaged the peace process and at the same time helped secure a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister in 1996. Hamas wants no collaboration with the so-called conquerors of Palestine. It has cultivated a culture of hate, riddled with eschatological calls to “Holy War”.

Importantly, Hamas is shunned by most Arab countries. This was evident at a recent Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Co-operation summit in Riyadh. Consider the following comments (collected by the screenwriter Hadar Galron) expressed prior to the current Israel-Hamas War:

- “Hamas has been a murderous terrorist movement for decades, directing its terrorism against the Palestinians… long before carrying out terror operations under the pretext of ‘liberating Palestine’...” 2021: Saudi TV journalist Abdullah bin Bijad

- “Hamas has greatly harmed the Palestinian cause…. It is in no way correct to call Hamas a national liberation movement. If Hamas is really a liberation movement, why does it follow the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood?” 2021: Former Jordanian minister of information, Saleh al-Qallab

- “Without Iranian support for Hamas and the Jihadists who control Gaza - we would be much closer to achieving a better peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.” 2019: Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, Bahrein minister of foreign affairs

- "Hamas are extremists and terrorists,” 2018: Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs.

Despite such widespread mistrust of Hamas in the Arab world, Kasrils appears to be seduced by the revised 2017 Hamas Charter which no longer includes The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and which accepts Israel behind the 4 June 1967 lines. For Kasrils, all is forgiven. The revised Charter does not object to Jews but only to Zionism. It even accepts the Israeli “ethno-state”, writes Kasrils.

If he means by ethno-state a “Jewish state”, he is wrong. “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea”, notes Article 20 of the new 2017 Charter. However, Kasrils has latched on to a compromise in the text - effectively “a halfway house”, as one scholar put it, “to the total destruction of Israel” - which talks of Israel existing within the 4 June 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital. It adds, however, that “the refugees and the displaced” will be returned “to their homes from which they were expelled” as a “formula of national consensus.” So bang goes the ethnic Jewish state.

The reality is that the 2017 Charter remains cluttered with conspiratorial thinking. “The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests”, notes Article 15. “It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace to mankind and its interests and stability”.

Little wonder commentators have concluded that “the Zionist project” in the text is simply functioning as code for “the Jews”. The pre-2017 mindset cannot easily be jettisoned. Kasrils should know that ideas are tenacious and have an ability to mutate. Can Hamas jettison Article 7 in the original Charter? “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him”.

I think not. Hamas only altered the 1988 Charter in 2017 because it undermined any possible credibility. Ronnie Kasrils, however, believes otherwise.

Milton Shain is emeritus professor in the department of historical studies at UCT. His latest book ‘Fascists, Fabricators and Fantasists. Antisemitism in South Africa from 1948 to the Present’ is published by Jacana Media.