The Hamas Charter ("The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement") rejects all peace talks with the State of Israel and stresses the terrorist organization's commitment to destroy Israel through a long-term holy war (jihad). The 1988 charter - an overtly antisemitic and anti-Western document which expresses Hamas' radical Islamic outlook - is valid till today.
The charter's extremist stance is uncompromising with regard to Israel. It expresses total opposition to any agreement or arrangement that would recognize Israel's right to exist.
Hamas' charter views jihad as the means to capture all of "Palestine" from the Jews and to destroy the State of Israel. It states that Palestine is comprised of sacred Islamic land and it is strictly forbidden to give up an inch of it because no one (including Arab rulers) has the authority to do so. Repeated statements from Hamas leaders define Palestine as including not just the West Bank and Gaza but all of the current State of Israel.
In the introduction to the charter, there is a quote attributed to Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it...." Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians are seen as links in the jihad chain.
It views the "problem of Palestine" as a religious-political Muslim issue, and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as a conflict between Islam and the "infidel" Jews. Article 15 of the charter states that the jihad to liberate Palestine is the personal duty of every Muslim, an idea expounded by al-Qaeda founder Abdallah Azzam.
Overt and vicious antisemitism, inspired by both Islamic and European sources, is articulated extensively throughout the document. The all-out jihad against the Jewish people is legitimized by demonizing the Jews and warning that they want to take over not only the Middle East but also the rest of the world.
The document includes antisemitic myths directly lifted from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" regarding Jewish world control, while the Jews are also held responsible for all world and local wars, as well as prominent revolutions. Anti-Jewish conspiracy theories abound. The Jews are also presented as worthy only of humiliation and lives of misery. That is because, according to the charter, they angered Allah, rejected the Koran and killed the prophets.
With regard to international relations, the charter manifests an extremist worldview which is as anti-Western as that of global jihad organizations.
The charter points out the ideological difference between Hamas, with its radical Islamic worldview, and the secularly-oriented Palestine Liberation Organization, but does refer to the need for Palestinian unity to face the Jewish enemy.
In recent years, senior Hamas officials have continued to emphasize their commitment to the terrorist organization's charter and have stated that they will never change a single word of it.