Hamas Covenant Altered to Remove Calls for Genocide

Note: This analysis is largely taken from Section F of the Verity Educate Report.

Students in several NPS classrooms utilize an altered version of the Hamas Covenant, changed to remove references to hatred of Jews and calls for the genocide of the Jewish people. Students are not notified that the Covenant has been altered. The falsified version is presented as the 'real' Hamas charter.

The falsified text omits quotations from the Koran supporting the murder of Jews and Christians, and removes references describing Jews as "Nazis".

Whether deliberately or out of ignorance, teachers are misrepresenting vital facts.

These students are our future leaders. They need to learn facts so to make realistic and appropriate decisions in the future. Presenting them with an altered version of the truth does us all a disservice.

Information about other altered primary source documents, including an altered version of the Palestinian National Charter in which one section is removed and remaining sections altered to hide the removal, and speeches given manufactured titles and 'annotated' with grossly inaccurate comments, can be found here and here and in the 'Primary Sources' section in the Verity Educate Report.

The full versions of both the altered Hamas Covenant and the 'real' Hamas Covenant, both utilizing the non-standard Al-Maqdisi translation, can be found below and here.

Introduction to the (altered) Hamas Charter provided to students

Below, in black type, is the introduction to the altered version of the Hamas Covenant provided to Newton students. Comments on the introduction are in blue type.

"By the late 1980s, weakened secular nationalist movements in the Middle East shared the political spotlight with such militant Islamic movements as Hamas, which means "zeal," whose 1988 Charter appears here. Such new movements modeled themselves on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas considers itself the Palestinian branch. Hamas won the 2006 election to head the Palestinian Authority but after a violent struggle with the more moderate Fatah and America cutting off aid, Hamas ended up taking over the government of Gaza instead of the West Bank and Gaza."

Comment: The introduction as well as the editing minimize Hamas' extremist roots and direct connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, and omit any mention of Koranic verses calling for the genocide of Jews.

The introduction minimizes the violence involved in the Hamas takeover of Gaza, and fails to state that the EU, UN, and Russia as well as the U.S withdrew aid due to the violence.

It also fails to state that the translation used is not the standard translation, but a little-used one written by an extremist.

Additional inaccuracies and bias are noted in the Verity Educate report.

Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement of Palestine (Hamas) (1988)

Note: Due to its length, only altered sections of the Charter are shown.

"Jihad and Nationalism: Nationalism, from the point of view of the Islamic Resistance Movement, is part and parcel of religious ideology. There is not a higher peak in nationalism or depth in devotion than jihad when an enemy lands on the Muslim territories. Fighting the enemy becomes the obligation of every Muslim man and woman. As far as the ideology of the Islamic Resistance Movement is concerned, giving up any part of Palestine is like giving up a part of its religion...Passages containing vitriol against Christians and Jews have been removed...[Peace] conferences are nothing but a form of enforcing the rule of the unbelievers in the land of Muslims..."

"The Zionist Enemy: [Statements referring to Jews as "Nazis" are removed] Our enemy (Zionism) uses the method of collective punishment, robbing the people of their land and property, and chasing them in their migration and places of gathering. They purposely break (bodily) bones, fire (live ammunition directly) at women, children, and elders, sometimes with reason or without a reason, create concentration camps to place thousands (of people) in inhuman conditions, not to mention the demolition of homes, orphaning of children, and issuance of tyrannical laws of thousands of youth so that they spent their years in obscurity in prisons..." Statements referring to Jews as "Nazis" are removed

"Jihad Against the Zionist Enemy: The Zionist invasion is a vicious attack that does not have piety...[and uses] all methods low and despicable to fulfill its obligations...Zionists are behind the drug and alcohol trade because of their ability to facilitate the ease of control and expansion. The Arab countries surrounding Israel are requested to open their borders for the Mujahideen [Islamic fighters] of the Arab and Islamic countries so they can take their role and join their efforts with their Muslim brothers of Palestine. As for the other Arabic and Islamic countries, they are asked to ease the movement of Mujahdeen from it and to it that is the least they could do..." the statement that "Israel with its Jewishness and its Jewish population challenges Islam and Muslims" is removed, again hiding the fact that Hamas' hatred and genocidal intentions are not against 'just' Israelis but against all Jews

This is Verity Educate’s summary of the issues surrounding the falsified version of the Hamas Covenant distributed to some Newton students:

"The...edits to the Hamas Covenant are so extreme that in some cases sentences from different articles of the Covenant are fused together. The editors of the [book from which the excerpt distributed to students was taken] do note all of these significant changes in a footnote. However, this footnote was deleted from the material before it was given to students. The effect is that students are taught that this handout represents the Hamas Covenant as a primary source. However, the extreme edits...have so altered the original primary source as to create an entirely new meaning. As a result, students will internalize a false enduring understanding...".

Verity Educate report, p. 50 (emphasis added)