What are the beliefs of the terrorist group Hamas, and how likely is it any peace can be negotiated with it? Hamas is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the advent of a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt — with which American officials at the level of the secretaries of defense and state are now dealing happily — may lead some analysts to suggest that the U.S. and Israel should overcome their refusal to deal with Hamas.

So we can be grateful that Hamas recently supplied us with a useful reminder of who it is and what it believes. The Arab news site Maan reported that Hamas had denounced a visit to Auschwitz by a Palestinian Authority official named Ziad al-Bandak, an aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

“It was an unjustified and unhelpful visit that served only the Zionist occupation,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, adding that Bandak’s visit to Auschwitz, a camp where the Nazis killed 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, during World War II, was “a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy.”

The Hamas Charter, the group’s constitutional or founding document, is a vicious anti-Semitic screed, but once in a while it is suggested that it is an old document that does not really represent the organization’s views anymore. That is not true, as this incident demonstrates: Hatred of Jews, including Holocaust denial, remains central to the Hamas belief system. It is a terrorist group, not a potential negotiating partner. Its hold on Gaza must be ended, not accommodated.