Talk with Hamas? Education first

“Everybody knows we have to eventually go to a political settlement” summarizes most columnists’ and commentators’ opinion about the end of the current round of fighting with Hamas in Gaza. Most writers can also predict that another round is only a matter of time. No one knows to offer a refreshing formula, except to comply with an abstract cease-fire. Unfortunately, most of the Israeli and international media is refusing to discuss the internal factors that drive this bloodshed, especially the Palestinian educational system in Gaza.

In recent months, the Hamas government’s Ministry of Education declared the implementation of a special education program for boys, called “Futwah,” which means “heroism” or “nobility.” The plan seeks to instill the values and ideology of Hamas in the future generation of the people of Gaza, as soon as they reach high school.

Muhammad Ziam, the supervisor of the program, explained that every school is to have an officer, appointed by the Ministry of National Security, in charge of implementing the program. The program is to include military skills such as marching, order and discipline, obedience to authority, sacrifice, courage and masculinity. Special emphasis will be placed on the dangers of “spying for the enemy.” According to Ziam, the program will be expanded later to include schoolgirls.

An official poster issued by the Director of Education in eastern Khan Yunis lists some of the goals of the program: “Prepare young believers, who can enter life characterized by trust, honesty, faith, courage, sacrifice and love of jihad [...] to develop the awareness of resistance, which ensures nurturing of young generations [that] will be able to join resistance [...] Preparing students for faith and [the ability] to be physically fit for resistance.”

Simply put, Hamas seeks to raise a new generation of jihadist terrorists. The supervisor for the Interior Ministry, Muhammad al-Nakhaleh, added that youngsters will learn their role in a “Resistance perpetrating society,” which “holds Islamic values.”

To understand what “resistance” means, we should turn to the main canon, the Hamas Charter. This document presents the Jews as the responsible party for most of the disasters occurring in the past 400 years; it is so mordant and anti-Semitic that prominent Israeli journalist Yaron London dubbed it “Hitlerist” during an interview with Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi.

The Jews are depicted, in Article 22 of the Hamas Charter, as follows: “They have taken over the media with their money [...] their money sparked revolutions [...] they were [behind] the French Revolution [...] The Communist [...] They stood behind World War I, which were able to eliminate the Islamic Caliphate [...] established the League of Nations through which they could rule the world [...] they were behind World War II [...] they ordered the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council [...] not a single war is underway anywhere in the world without having them involved in it.”

And how, you ask, must be those evil creatures be dealt with? Well, Article 7 of the Hamas Charter makes it clear that Jewish existence will come to an end – by the Armageddon of the Muslims against the Jews. That day, “The stones and trees will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding [behind me], come and kill him.’” True, it is unlikely that political arrangements which failed to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza will instill consciousness that encourages co-existence and weed out anti-Semitic hatred. But anti-Semitism is not emerging out of Gaza’s tunnels; instead it is cultivated above ground, in schools and mosques.

It is appropriate, therefore, for countries and other international organizations to stipulate future financial aid to Gaza in deletion of content that educates for hatred and murder of Jews. There is no moral or political justification for the investment of resources, only to raise the next generation of terrorism.

The writer is a jurist and conducts research in business law at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. The author may be contacted at: Uzan.elad@post.idc.ac.il