2017 Hamas charter


On 1 May 2017, Palestinian political and military organization Hamas unveiled A Document of General Principles and Policies, also known as the 2017 Hamas charter, "new charter", or "current" charter. It accepted the idea of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, i.e. comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip only, on the condition that also the Palestinian refugees were allowed to return to their homes, if it is clear this is the consensus of the Palestinians ; but at the same time this document strove for the "complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea", and did not explicitly recognize Israel. The new charter holds that armed resistance against an occupying power is justified under international law.
While the 1988 Hamas Charter had been widely criticized for its antisemitism, the 2017 document removed the antisemitic language and stated that Hamas' fight was not with Jews as such because of their religion but with the "Zionist project." When asked, Hamas leaders explained that "The original charter has now become a historical document and part of an earlier stage in our evolution. It will remain in the movement's bookshelf as a record of our past." Khaled Mashal stated that the new document reflected "our position for now." However, Hamas fell short of formally repudiating the original 1988 charter. According to an analyst Hamas did not formally revoke the old charter so as to not alienate some of its base members, who it feared might join rival Islamist factions.
Views on the 2017 document varied. While some welcomed it as a sign of pragmatism and increased political maturity, and a potential step on the way to peace, many others dismissed it as a merely cosmetic effort designed to make Hamas sound more palatable while changing nothing about Hamas' underlying aims and methods.

Presentation

Hamas leader Khaled Mashal presented the document at a press conference in Doha on 1 May 2017, shortly before being replaced as leader by Ismail Haniyeh. The new document was the result of years of internal discussions; many Hamas members still regarded its text as controversial.
In his presentation, Mashal described the Hamas movement as following a middle way between two poles: extremism and flexibility. In comparison to the Hamas Charter of 1988, which was marked by religious rhetoric and utopian ideas, the newer document was characterized by simple and mostly pragmatic political language. It contained a preamble and 42 paragraphs in which Hamas outlined its positions on the fundamental aspects of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The document affirmed the movement's adherence to its founding principles, but also left open gray areas to allow Hamas political room for maneuver in the future. The text was called wathiqa in Arabic which is supposed to be less fixed and binding than mithaq – the term used for the 1988 charter.
In a departure from the tone of the original charter, which presented the fight against Israel as a religious struggle, the new document said that there was a nationalist conflict "with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion". However, the old charter was not explicitly revoked. When asked, Hamas leaders explained: "The original charter has now become a historical document and part of an earlier stage in our evolution. It will remain in the movement's bookshelf as a record of our past." Mashal stated that the new document reflected "our position for now, which means that we are not a rigid ideological organization... The old charter was a product of its era, 30 years ago. We live in a different world today." Some analysts opined that Hamas did not revoke the old charter so as to not alienate some of its base members, who it feared might join rival Islamist factions. Jean-François Legrain, writing in the Routledge Handbook of Political Islam, said the question of the 1988 charter's repeal having been avoided could only mean that it was not repealed. Only its antisemitic aspects could be considered repealed, Legrain said, as the new document explicitly expressed an entirely different position. Any other provisions in the 1988 charter upon which the new document remained silent could be considered still valid, along with numerous other communiqués and declarations Hamas had published over the preceding three decades.
Hamas also declared its willingness to support any peace agreement accepted in a popular referendum and distanced itself from all foreign Islamic organisations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which, having lost power in Egypt, had come to be classed as a terrorist organization there. The Brotherhood is not even mentioned by name in the new document, although there are still traceable echoes of their ideology.

Contents

The document was published in Arabic and English. There are some slight differences between the two language versions, mainly involving differences in nuance and connotation.
File:Palestine Base Map.png|thumb|400px|right|The Charter was notable for accepting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without, however, recognizing Israel.

Preamble

The preamble of the document states that Palestine is "the land of the Arab Palestinian people, from it they originate, to it they adhere and belong, and about it they reach out and communicate." This differs from the 1988 charter in which Palestine is described as an "Islamic endowment" belonging to the entire Muslim nation. Rhetorically, however, the new document also affirms the Islamic importance of Palestine as "the spirit of the Ummah and its central cause; it is the soul of humanity and its living conscience."

Paragraphs 1–42

The first paragraph describes Hamas as a nationalist liberation and resistance movement with Islam as its "frame of reference." Under the heading "The Land of Palestine", the document names the geographical borders of Palestine, "which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south"—i.e., the entirety of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. Here, it is affirmed that Palestine "is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people". This definition is followed by a general Islamic reference : "Palestine is an Arab Islamic land. It is a blessed sacred land that has a special place in the heart of every Arab and every Muslim."
This is followed by a definition of Palestinians : "The Palestinians are the Arabs who lived in Palestine until 1947, irrespective of whether they were expelled from it, or stayed in it; and every person that was born to an Arab Palestinian father after that date, whether inside or outside Palestine, is a Palestinian.... The Palestinian identity is authentic and timeless; it is passed from generation to generation."
The following part describes Palestine as the heart of the Arab and Islamic Ummah and emphasizes the special status of Jerusalem in Islam. In the next part, the right of the displaced Palestinians to return to their homeland is postulated to exist under divine law, human rights law, and international law.
The "Zionist project" is described as a "racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist project based on seizing the properties of others" that is hostile to the Palestinian people and their aspirations for freedom, return, and self-determination. This project, the document says, not only poses a threat to the Palestinians but also threatens the "security and interests" of the entire Arab and Islamic Ummah. The document goes on to state that the conflict revolves solely around the "Zionist project" and that there is no religious conflict with Jewish people. It states that "Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage."
Under the heading "The position toward Occupation and Political Solutions", the document describes the two-state solution—i.e., the creation of an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital—as a "formula of national consensus", but without giving up the claim to the whole of Palestine, "from the river to the sea", and "without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity." Rickard Lagervall, of Jönköping University, viewed this as an "ambiguous formulation." Tareq Baconi, of Columbia University and the European Council on Foreign Relations, gives two reasons why Hamas refused to explicitly recognize Israel:
The charter criticizes the agreements reached in the Oslo Accords and rejects them as incompatible with international law. It describes the state of Israel, created with the help of Western nations, as "entirely illegal". Israeli military analyst Shaul Bartal interpreted this section to mean that the two-state solution was envisaged as a temporary stage and the long-term goal remained the liberation of the whole of Palestine.
The section on "Resistance and Liberation" also refers to international law and states that this legitimizes armed resistance against an occupying power, with armed resistance seen as "the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people". At the same time, the document speaks of "diversifying the means and methods" of resistance and includes "popular and peaceful resistance."
The document adopts a conciliatory tone in the section "The Palestinian Political System" : commonalities with other Palestinian groups are emphasized, and differences are downplayed. The national role of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority is explicitly recognized, and the document concludes by referring in secular language to the "fundamental" role of Palestinian women in the "project of resistance, liberation and building the political system."
In the last two sections, titled "The Arab and Islamic Ummah" and "The Humanitarian and International Aspect", Hamas makes clear that it has no interest in interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the region that have seen upheaval as part of the Arab Spring uprisings.