As the Hamas terror organization´s rating in the polls rises daily, and with the PA elections just days away, the world media have been eager to report that Hamas has been presenting a more moderate image. Since 1993, the media have been repeatedly guilty of exaggerating Palestinian public relations messages of moderation, and presenting them as sincere changes in Palestinian ideology. However, this rush by the world media to crown Hamas as moderate is simply wrong.

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official, appeared on a Palestinian Authority Television Hamas election ad and reiterated that there has been no change in the Hamas goal to destroy Israel. The unchanging Hamas religious ideology, that all of Israel is on Islamic land and therefore Islam demands it be destroyed, is stated unequivocally when Al-Zahar says, "Palestine is a land of Waqf [Islamic trust], which cannot be given up."

Click here to view the Hamas TV election ad.

The following is the transcript of part of the Hamas election ad:

"We have a new plan; to teach men the land of Palestine; the geography of Palestine; the history of Palestine; and the history of the Arab and Muslim Nation. Our plan has nothing to do with the Israeli enemy. We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay [on the land], nor his ownership of any inch of land. Therefore, we do not see [Israel] as an ally, not in policy, not in security, not in economy and not in any form of cooperation. Israel is an enemy who is interested in uprooting us, and we are interested in restoring our full rights to return all the people of Palestine to the land of Palestine. Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf [Islamic trust], which can not be given up."
[PA TV, January 17, 2006]

Even before this broadcast, one had only to look at Hamas pre- election websites to see all the classic Hamas ideology - including the demand, based on religious belief, that all Israel must be destroyed through Jihad.

The following are the messages on Hamas websites:

1. Defining the goal of the conflict as "liberation of Haifa and Jaffa" and all of "Palestine"
2. Support for those Israeli Arabs who wish to destroy Israel "from the interior"
3. Glorifying terror, terrorists and terrorist training
4. Video of woman suicide terrorist Reem Riyashi´s farewell before she killed four Israelis.
5. Celebration of love of death as superior to the Israeli love of life.
6. Celebration of mothers who send their sons to die as shahids for Allah.
7. Hamas looks forward to a day when its flag will fly over not only Jerusalem, but over all

Israeli cities, including Acre and Haifa.

Click here to view examples from Hamas website videos.

The following is the transcript of part of the Hamas website video:

Hamas website, October 2005

"The suicide bombing of Reem Riyashi brought a change in the Jihad operations with the participation of women, so a mother no long stops her son when he goes to battle in Jihad operations.

Ahmad Yassin [former spiritual head of Hamas]: "We seek Shahada [Martyrdom]. We seek the eternal life, not the worthless worldly life."

Ismaeil Haniya [Hamas head in Gaza]: "Continue the resistance [terror], keep your weapon, the legitimate weapon of the resistance. Beware not to abandon it! Hamas will continue to be, Allah willing, a home for all Palestinian and Jihad fighters that want to fight for the sake of Allah [and] for the liberation of our land... The Zionist withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank is the first step in the liberation of the rest of our occupied land."

Muhammad Deif [Commander of Hamas´ terrorist wing]: "Today you are leaving Gaza because it is a hell. Tomorrow we will make all of Palestine a hell for you."

Hamas website, August 2005

Muhammad Deif: "Without this Jihad, this effort, this forbearance and fighting on the frontier, Gaza wouldn´t have been liberated. I pray to [Allah] to assist us and to assist you in liberating Jerusalem, the West Bank, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Safed, Nazareth, Ashkelon, and the whole of Palestine."
[Hamas websites, August & October 2005. Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Safed, Nazareth and Ashkelon are wholly within the pre-1967 borders of Israel - Ed.]