DYING FOR GOD 245The goals of Hamas are laid out in their Covenant of the Islamic Re-
sistance Movement, issued August 18, 1988. Article 15 of this covenant
is highly informative: “The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land,
Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim[italics added].” It
goes on: “It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Muslim generations
that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem[italics added], and
should be dealt with on this basis.”
It ends with, “I swear by the holder of Muhammad’s soul [Allah]that
I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and
be killed, and then invade again and be killed[italics added].”
Article 22 of the Hamas covenant is interesting in that it specifically
identifies the Free Masons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, BÛnai BÛrith, and
the like as their enemies. It is probable that this is because these organi-
zations have loyalties to groups outside of Islam and might, as a result,
bring pressure against a Muslim to choose other than their Islamic
community.
Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, a leading figure in Hamas and its spokesman
in Gaza, was interviewed by theKul al-Arabnewspaper on January 9,
- A self-proclaimed fundamentalist member of the Muslim Brother-
hood, in that interview he said, “You call them ‘suicide operations,’ and
I call them ‘martyr operations.’ They are not terrorism. They are a re-
sponse to Israeli terrorism, individual and governmental, against Palestin-
ian civilians. We should remember that these martyr operations began after
the massacre committed by the terrorist Baruch Goldstein [in the Hebron
mosque in 1994] and intensified after the assassination of Yahya Ayash.”
Dr. al-Rantisi’s linking of martyrdom with terrorism is a clear indication
of how modern fundamentalists view the legitimacy of any methods of
killing those perceived as enemies of Islam.
If one uses the Assassin sect as a template for Hamas, several points
seem to coincide. The emphasis on murder for political or religious rea-
sons is one. The inherent weakness of the sponsoring group is another. If
the Assassins or Hamas had a culture strong enough to attract sufficient
followers, they would have been able to field the military forces that could
ensure their goals. But murder and suicide are not strong lures to large
numbers of people. Thus the Assassins caused their own destruction, and
it is difficult to imagine Hamas doing much better.
Apparently the largest Islamic murder organization is Al-Qaeda. Al-
Qaeda was established by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s to fight
the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan. This initial purpose has, however,
changed since the expulsion of the Russians, and its current goal is two-
fold: (1) to remove Western influences from the Middle East and particu-