Originally published 2017 | Updated January 2026
For many years, Hamas’ Charter of 1988 has undermined their legitimacy within the international community. Many advocates in favor of Palestinian independence have found themselves unable to endorse the violence, antisemitism, and calls for genocide contained within the document.
In 2017, Hamas released a revised document titled “General Principles and Policies” in an attempt to rebrand their public image. It served as an affirmation of their ideologies and positions on issues relating to Israel.
Nearly a decade later, and in the shadow of the October 7 massacre, this effort at rebranding can be assessed with greater clarity. From a legal perspective, the revised document did not constitute ideological reform. It was a strategic exercise in linguistic moderation that left Hamas’ core objectives intact and legally indefensible.
The Contradiction at the Heart of Hamas’ Position
The 2017 document provides insight into Hamas’ willingness, or lack thereof, to coexist with an Israeli state:
“Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.” [i]
This is an oxymoron of a policy, requiring intellectual gymnastics to understand both its consistency and logic. Acceptance of a state along the pre-1967 armistice lines denotes a willingness or reluctant acceptance to live alongside an Israeli state, rather than a “full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.” The two positions are incompatible.
Their so-called “acceptance” of a state is essentially an acceptance of a starting point from which to appropriate modern-day Israel. This was admitted by senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahhar in 2011, who referred to the acceptance of the pre-1967 lines as “just a phase” until Hamas has a chance to “regain the land, even if we [Hamas] have to do so inch by inch.” [ii]
Following this logic, Brazil could hypothetically accept a state in Rio de Janeiro yet maintain the entire territorial integrity of modern-day Brazil. Or, more appropriately, the Islamic State could accept a state in Raqqa, Syria, yet maintain its ambitions to establish a Caliphate from Spain to Afghanistan.
Under international law, recognition is not symbolic. It is a prerequisite for durable sovereignty, stable borders, and peaceful relations between states. Hamas’ position reduces the concept of statehood to a tactical waypoint rather than a terminal political solution. From a legal standpoint, such a posture fails the minimum threshold of good faith required for participation in any peace process.
Antisemitism in the 1988 Hamas Charter
The 1988 Charter contains conspiratorial antisemitic accusations of Jewish and Zionist domination of global institutions, as well as insinuations about the malevolence of Jewish people:
“Writers, intellectuals, media people, orators, educators and teachers, and all the various sectors in the Arab and Islamic world – all of them are called upon to perform their role, and to fulfil their duty, because of the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control, as well as the consequences that all this lead to in the greater part of the world.” [iii]
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.” [iv]
“Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. “May the cowards never sleep.” [v]