Hamas 1.3 - 2017 Revised Charter

A Document of General Principles and Policies (وثيقة المبادئ والسياسات العامة لحركة حماس)

When Hamas released its “updated” charter in 2017, it created a great deal of discussion due to its ambiguity. Ambassador Mark Green of the Wilson Center states that “by 2017, it appeared that Hamas wanted to reshape, or at least clarify, its public image in some quarters. It took steps to soften some of the most extreme language of its 1988 charter by issuing new statements and declarations. While not repealing or superseding the original document, it supplemented it with more ambiguous terms and rhetoric.”

Mark Green states, “For example, the original charter called it "compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised"; In 2017, Hamas portrayed itself as a resistance movement aiming to “liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.”

In 1988, Hamas explicitly acknowledged its links to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the 2017 Hamas Charter is devoid of references to the Brotherhood.

In 1988, Hamas declared that the “Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.” By 2017, Hamas claimed its mission wasn’t “a struggle

against Jews or Judaism,” but a “struggle…against the Zionist occupation….”

According to Dr. Ido Zelkovitz of Mitvim, the new document is not intended to replace the

Hamas charter nor cancel it. It is a tool meant to enable Hamas’ leadership to maneuver between 3 fields: 1. Palestinian politics, where Hamas is struggling to maintain the upper hand over Fatah; 2. inter-Arab politics, where Hamas is trying to gain legitimacy at the expense of the PLO; and 3. the international community, to which Hamas wants to appear more moderate.

Dr. Zelkowitz explains that the publication of Hamas’ 2017 document is part of a process

intended to expand the organization’s policy options. However, the document does not include game-changing messages. Hamas is not discarding old principles nor is it forsaking jihad as a fundamental value and a core stepping stone in the liberation of Palestine. Hamas’ leadership understands the implications of renouncing the armed struggle. If Hamas were to abandon the principle of jihad, it would not be the same Hamas anymore. Jihad is the glue that binds Hamas activists, and abandoning it would also cause Hamas to lose military and financial resources, which are vital to its survival within the fractured Palestinian system.

When the 2017 document was published the reaction, as can be expected, was extremely varied......

Khaled Hroub (University of Cambridge) wrote that with the paper, Hamas wanted to

distance itself from the reputation of a terrorist organization. -  Khaled Hroub: Recent Books: Insiders' Views of Hamas. In: Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. 37, No. 3, Spring 2008, pp. 93–96.

Danielle Nicole Lussier saw the policy paper as a sign of "pragmatism".

Beverley Milton-Edwards, a political scientist at the University of Belfast, said the declaration was an important starting point for future peace negotiations.-  Ayoob, Mohammed; Lussier, Danielle Nicole (2020). The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in Muslim Societies. University of Michigan Press. p. 135.

The Palestinian Authority's Mohammed Shtayyeh accused Hamas of being decades behind in its thinking, telling CNN: "Hamas is debating things [the PLO] did 43 years ago." – CNN.com

Jerome Slater (Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo) pointed out that while the document seemed to accept an Israel within the 1967 borders, it also called for the right of Palestinians to return to their original homes, now in Israel. That represented an obvious logical contradiction.- Slater, Jerome (2020). Mythologies Without End: The US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020.

Oxford University Press. pp. 333–334.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said "the charter does little to advance peace but does much to sustain conflict."

David Keyes, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2016 to 2018,

described the policy paper as an attempt by Hamas "to fool the world."

Netanyahu himself crumpled up a copy of the document on camera and threw it in a wastepaper basket. 

"The new Hamas document says that Israel has no right to exist, it says every inch of our

land belongs to the Palestinians, it says there is no acceptable solution other than to remove Israel... they want to use their state to destroy our state," Netanyahu said.

The Israeli Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre assessed that the 2017 Hamas document presented "no change in Hamas' basic ideology and principles, which are based on an uncompromising effort to destroy Israel through violence and terrorism, even if this is carried out in stages (presenting conditional willingness to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders).

The adjustments, changes and additions that appear in the Political Document are intended to present the appearance of Hamas' renewal and adaptation to the current reality, but without any significant change in the principles and basic perception that constitute the core of the Document."- Brenner, Bjorn (2021-11-30). Gaza Under Hamas: From Islamic Democracy to Islamist Governance. Bloomsbury Academic.

pp. 208–209. 

In the European Union, the USA and Russia, the new document was also received rather coldly, much to Hamas' surprise and dismay. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter

Post-October 7 Assessments

According to extremism researcher Armin Pfahl-Traughber, who pointed out the continuities in the 2017 document compared to the earlier one, the "moderation" of the new charter had "clear objective", namely "strategic deception". In his view, its use of "from the river to the sea" alone implied "a corresponding intention of destruction characterized by violence" towards the state of Israel, and he viewed Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel as but the latest illustration of this.-Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Antisemitismus und Antizionismus in der ersten und zweiten Charta der Hamas www.bpb.de, 8 November 2023

The Wilson Center's Mark A. Green noted that while Hamas said in its 2017 charter that it "rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds." In 2017, Hamas dressed up their terrorist objectives in more ambiguous, less violent terms. But in 2023, they made clear what they really stood for—in President Biden's words, "The destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people."- Hamas: Words and Deeds…, Wilson Center, 24. October 2023

Daniel Byman (Georgetown University) and Mackenzie Holtz, in an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies on December 6, 2023, said the negative reactions to the new charter could partly explain Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th. Netanyahu binned the document. There was thus no incentive for moderation, probably making the idea of a large-scale attack more attractive. To support this view, Byman and Holtz cited an interview statement by Hamas official  Basem Naim : "We knew there was going to be a violent reaction. ... But we didn't choose this road while having other options. We have no options.- Daniel Byman and Mackenzie Holtz, WhyHamas Attacked When It Did, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6. December 2023

Yahya Sinwar, the political and military leader of Hamas in Gaza, reportedly supported the new charter but then took a more extreme position when it failed to lead to a political settlement with Israel. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter

Nathan J. Brown wrote optimistically in November 2012, "Yes, it is possible that Hamas can change and evolve. In some ways, it already has. But further evolution, if possible, is hardly inevitable, and the process is likely to be extremely slow and uncertain. The path is a risky one, to be sure. But Hamas is beckoning for a new approach."

-newrepublic.com/article/110277/long-road-moderate-hamas

It appears that political pundits are just as good as meteorologists at predicting the future.

And here we are today.

One final quote from Yahwa Sinwar after a terrorist killed three in Tel Aviv in March 2022,

“If one Palestinian with a pistol can do that in downtown Tel Aviv, what could ten elite resistance fighters do?”

For a copy of the 2017 Revised Charter - https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf