Talk:Hamas

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RfC: Recognition of Israel section - due weight

What weight should the following viewpoints be given in the Recognition of Israel section, in terms of prominence and proximity to each other? The latest round of the discussion can be found here but there were many related discussions and I believe that at this point we need external input.

1. Hamas retains the long-term objective of establishing one state in former Mandatory Palestine.
2. Hamas accepted the 1967 borders in its 2017 charter, thus acknowledging the existence of an entity on the other side.

Options

• About the same
• 1 should have greater weight
• 2 should have greater weight
• Other - please explain. Alaexis_¿question? 09:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Hamas's long-term goals are not in question and are supported by multiple reliable sources

• The short-term objective aims to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, while the long-term objective still strives to liberate Mandate Palestine in its entirety
• In response to accusations of contradicting Hamas's original charter, its leaders emphasised that this move is an intermediary one, until the liberation of the remainder of Palestine becomes more feasible
• there is no doubt that ... Hamas is focused on ... destroying the 'Zionist entity'

While this section addresses recognition in its narrow definition, it also discusses related topics such as Hamas's stance on the 1967 borders. Therefore, omitting their long-term goals would violate NPOV. Even sources generally sympathetic to Hamas acknowledge the dichotomy

Hamas has always oscillated between its attachment to the ‘historical solution’, which foresees the liberation of the whole of Palestine, and its capacity to recognize the validity of the ‘interim solution’, which prescribes the creation of a state with the 1967 borders

There are no RS that dispute these long-term goals. On the other hand, the acceptance of the 1967 borders and "implicit recognition" are seen as a tactical move by some and as genuine by others. Therefore the long-term goals should be given greater weight. Alaexis_¿question? 09:48, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

(Invited by the bot) I don't have the depth of knowledge of this article to answer such a nuanced complex question. I started looking at it wanted to note one observation. In discussing a past, present or possible present objective of the destruction of Israel, instead of stating that directly this article uses complex obscure terms and terms of art to say that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:30, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

What exactly does "having greater weight" in the section mean? Based on your previous edit to that section, I assume you mean putting the line about “others believe it retains it as a long-term objective” in the first paragraph. I have now gone ahead and done that, with the addition of the directly relevant point by Baconi. We can proceed with an RfC on that or whatever other specific changes you want to make if you like, but as proposed currently this is too broadly phrased.

Also, and importantly: it's not true that the nature of the long-term position is indicative of a refusal to ever officially recognise Israel. RS say Hamas is amenable to officially recognising Israel as part of a permanent solution:

Despite the often-cited rhetoric in Hamas’s discourse about the impossibility of recognizing Israel, there actually is a visible thread of thinking that offers just such a possibility, though only if Israel reciprocated positively. After assuming his new post in early April 2006, Hamas’s foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahhar sent a letter to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, declaring that his government would be willing to live in peace, side by side with ‘its neighbours’, based on a two-state solution. However, other statements attributed to Hamas leaders have implied that the issue of recognizing Israel should be one of the goals of negotiations, not the prerequisite to them...To reconcile the extreme of the liberation of the entire historic land of Palestine with the realities of the existence of Israel on the ground, Hamas has suggested resorting to a national referendum on the final settlement to be concluded by Israel and the Palestinians. The democratically elected Hamas will abide by whatever the Palestinian people decide concerning their own fate, in a free and democratic referendum. By Hamas’s way of thinking, the referendum idea is a decent solution to the theoretical and practical impasse that could result, and be exclusively, if wrongly, put down to Hamas’s refusal to recognize Israel and accept the principle of a two-state solution. (Hroub, 2006, Hamas: A Beginner's Guide, pp. 40-41)

Michael Schulz (2020, Between Resistance, Sharia Law, and Demo-Islamic Politics, p. 70) says that the 2017 Hamas Charter statement on the two-state solution being a formula of national consensus shows a readiness on the part of Hamas to accept such a solution permanently even if it wasn't its own preference, provided it could be shown to be the declared will of the Palestinian people. According to Schulz, this would require a legitimate future referendum involving all Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as well as those living in the Diaspora.

Tristan Dunning, author of several books and articles on Hamas, has also said this: Indeed, it [Hamas] has been amenable to some kind of permanent solution with Israel since the mid-1990s. For years, Hamas has quite clearly stated that it would accept a two-state solution, provided the deal is put to a referendum and approved by the Palestinian people.

Gunning, 2007, p. 237, Hamas in Politics: Pragmatists, like absolutists, insist that the legitimate solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is the abolition of Israel, the return of the estimated 4.5 million Palestinian refugees living abroad (PASSIA, 2006) and the creation of an Islamic state in all of Palestine. But they claim that it is in the national interest to concede that Israel is here to stay, and to use all means at their disposal, including both political compromise and (the threat of) resistance, to create a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Yassin’s notion of a long-term /udnah is an attempt to balance these two logics. It does not give up its claim to the land of Palestine but it allows it to suspend this claim if the popular will believes this to be in the national interest. In the words of Ahmad Ahmad, senior Hamas legislator from Nablus: “I will negotiate for my usurped rights from the river to the sea, but I will suspend my rights over what was seized before 1967 in order to achieve all my rights that were taken after 1967” (ICG, 2006a: 20).

Baconi also says the following in relation to the point about using mutual recognition as a bargaining chip, but also in reference to the acceptance of the national consensus formula (2018, p.230):

Khaled Meshal has even offered written guarantees to international mediators underscoring this, noting that Hamas would abide by the outcome of any referendum to a peace deal delivered to the Palestinian people, including deals that entail mutual recognition, while stressing that Hamas would not accept those outcomes until the deal is implemented.

Alsoos (2021), the source for the two-phase point, discusses this in terms of realpolitik pragmatism (pp. 838-839): Conversely, in the Introductory Memorandum cooperation was conditioned on the ‘non-recognition’ of the state of Israel and rejection of the Oslo peace accord of 1993. In the early 2000s, conditional non-recognition was dropped when ‘democratic elections’ became the criteria deciding interactions and ongoing intra-Palestinian power struggles, including the potential for Hamas’s integration into the PLO.

Regarding your sources, the Bar-On, Tamir; Bale, Jeffrey M. (2024) source has a throwaway line on how Hamas "no doubt" intends to destroy Israel. It does not provide any analysis or sourcing for this claim, it is not from subject-matter experts, and the book is not about Hamas. There is no value in adding it, imo.

The same is true of the second source you note. It essentially reiterates what Alsoos and Mishal already say, except it does not provide any sources, does not engage in any analysis, and mischaracterises the context as added by Alsoos, Mishal and others regarding the multi-phase approach. I have added Mishal as a separate source instead.

As the section currently stands, it also does not include many sources, including those I have cited here, that explicitly say Hamas is open to a permanent solution with Israel including official recognition. But I am fine with leaving those out as Baconi suffices for that point.

Finally, while we’re at it, your description of Seurat–a leading academic subject-matter expert on Hamas–as being sympathetic to them is bordering on WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. You also quote Seurat out of context, who has a comment about oscillation in the introduction – where she is describing specifically the move from the early rejectionist phase to its later acquiescing phase. Seurat repeatedly stresses that Hamas has implicitly recognised Israel. Many other experts and other RS make the point that Hamas has implicitly recognised Israel, and some –like Brenner– go even further, saying the group has "de facto" recognised it (2022, p. 206). All of these sources are already on the page, but again, I see no need to add more of them in this section. Smallangryplanet (talk) 18:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for making the change. If we can reach consensus that way, this would be great. I'll tweak the text a bit tomorrow, let me know what you think.

Regarding the sources you've provided, they do represent the viewpoint that Hamas is amenable to some kind of an agreement with Israel. This viewpoint definitely exists and I do not suggest purging it from the article. Note that Gunning also says that the legitimate solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is the abolition of Israel and that they are willing to suspend my rights over what was seized before 1967. Suspension is usually understood to be temporary.

Also note that Baconi is a scholar *and* an activist so he's likely to be biased, which we should take into account when determining due weight. Alaexis_¿question? 21:59, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Your latest edit does not accurately say what the consensus in the RS says. It is not "According to some scholars" that Hamas repeatedly accepted the 1967 borders, it is a factual matter that they have done so in the listed agreements. Elsewhere on the page this is also said in Wikivoice, as in the lede: "While initially seeking a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine it began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In 2017, Hamas released a new charter that supported a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders". And it should be, as it is the consensus view in the scholarship.

The only area of disagreement is the question of whether they would also accept it in the long-term, and that is currently accurately portrayed in the introductory paragraph with both sides represented.

Also your claim about Baconi being an "activist" and hence "likely biased" is based on him being a fellow and president at an independent Palestinian policy network. That does not detract from his value as a subject-matter expert, and the source we cite for him is from a highly reputable academic publisher (Stanford University Press). Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 23:06, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

I understand the point you made in your edit summary. However the second part of the sentence (thus acknowledging the existence of an entity on the other side) is not found in any of the agreements and therefore is a conclusion drawn by experts. We should attribute this second part of the sentence. Alaexis_¿question? 12:43, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes that part is indeed attributed. However, it is attributed to "many" scholars on the page in its first references in the lede and the introductory paragraph to the "Policies toward Israel and Palestine" category, with the "while others" right after. I have added that to the introductory paragraph of the recognition section as well per the standard. To make it be in logical order the "subject of debate" line has to be put at the start, so I have also done that. This should resolve the issue. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 21:38, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so it doesn't matter what is written in the lede. Perhaps we'll need to fix it as well. In both cases we have a handful of sources that make a certain claim, there is no justification for writing "many" in one case and "some" in the other. Alaexis_¿question? 08:45, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Gentlemen and ladies. ‘Recognition of Israel’ is a vague and/or mythical thing, if we consider OUR OWN Wikipedia definition of Diplomatic recognition: “declarative political act of a state that acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state”. As long as Hamas is not a state, it cannot recognise any (other) state, if we follow our own advice. Ofcourse a news medium like Al Jazeera (or any other source) is not bound by Wikipedia definitions, they may write and think and say what they want. But we Wikipedia have a holy duty towards our public to make understandable articles, not….illogical heaps of words and sentences.

This section therefore must be overhauled. First: its title must be placed in single quotes—because the term can mean many things. Then, there are two possible options for the body of the section: (A) We make a list of possible interpretations of the term, and put all our referenced statements in the correct sub-sub-section; (B) We do not bother to sort out the different interpretations of the term, but in that case EVERY sourced statement that does not LITERALLY speak of ‘recognition of Israel’ (like, currently, sentences 2 and 3 of the section, etc. etc. etc.) will have to be considered off-topic in this section. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

If you want to make specific changes to the current consensus version of this section established through a lengthy discussion process, I recommend making a separate talk with your proposed edits and then gain consensus for it.

What you are saying now is very esoteric. If you believe "recognition of Israel" as a concept is inherently vague or mythical, and then use that basis to discount what RS say on the subject as you propose your own personal alternative versions, I do not believe you can get very far with that in terms of establishing consensus. We go by what the RS say, that is how Wikipedia works. So you should find and cite specific RS that is due to back up what you want to edit in the section, and then we can assess and discuss that. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 23:29, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

@Raskolnikov.Rev: ofcourse ‘we go by what the RS say’, but only if we understand what a source says. In many cases it’s obvious what a source is saying: if he says ‘France’, we understand he talks about that European country, so we can list his statement in an appropriate section under article France. But if a source would say: ‘I think we must paint France blue’, we cannot place the statement anywhere in article ‘France’, unless we first understand what he means to say with that quote.

Even if more sources would say: ‘let’s colour France yellow’, ‘let’s paint France orange’, etc. etc., there still wouldn’t be a good reason to copy it all in Wikipedia, as long as we wouldn’t have a clue what they are all on about. My posting here on 4 April doesn’t mean I’m “discounting what sources say” over ‘Hamas [not] recognizing Israel’, I just say that what they say(about rcgn. Isr.) is very vague and confusing, in our presentation here. What, mr./mrs. Raskolnikov, is Wikipedia’s purpose with presenting this chaotic and long section?

I’m not proposing “my own version(s)” as to what the term means, I only propose to investigate and organize what all those sources mean with it, because they obviously make very different comparisons about the term (‘accepting [certain] borders’, ‘acknowledging an entity’, etc. etc. etc.). If Wikipedia starts a section with title Recognition of Israel, Wikipedia itself MUST know what it means with the expression. If Wikipedia does not know what Wikipedia itself understands under the term, and thus considers it only as a set (possibly an expression) of three words, the proper way to signal that to your public, is, to place that expression in single quotes: ‘Recognition of Israel’. This plainly signals to the readers: a lot of people talk about this, but we’re absolutely not sure they mean the same thing by it. You can call this reasoning “esotheric”, but it is not: it is simply how every scholar or serious newspaper or news source handles terms that they are not sure about how they must be understood. --Corriebertus (talk) 13:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

References

References

Alaexis_¿question? 09:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

"Honor" Killing of Yusra al-Azami

They do not let me talk about the "honor" killing of Yusra al.Azami. I do not intend to make a edition war. But I want to make things more clear. The killers were Hamas, and so was the victim, it seems. The way the matter was handled is revealing of the Hamas mentality, which, as someone said, is "archaic fascist". They are a resistance movement, yes, but not a liberation movement; they do not wish to liberate anyone, they are religious fanatics, like the Christians who grilled people alive during the Christian Inquisition. That said, don't think I'm not pro-Palestinian. I'm for a two-state solution, although the current state of affairs makes it seem increasingly unlikely. Both sides invoke God; but what would he think of all this, if he existed?

Erase, my friend, erase. ~~~~ Mcorrlo (talk) 12:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Mcorrlo When it comes to determining if something should be described on a given page, we are meant to Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public. This story received sporadic coverage at the time it happened and no consistent coverage in the following years. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, if we start adding every random killing with the same dubious level of sourcing we could end up with hundreds of cases. Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

So you think it did not happen? Independent, a respected newspaper, and Human Rights Watch are wrong? Not reliable sources? No consistant coverage? I still think the case is representative. I repeat: Hamas are archaic fascists ( the right wing in Israel are modern)~~~~ Mcorrlo (talk) 13:54, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

So you think it did not happen?
Where tf did he say that? 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 13:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I didn't say that it didn't happen, and this is not a forum, your personal opinions about Hamas are irrelevant (as are mine, as are everybody's). We're here to make an encyclopaedia, and in this situation there's no obvious reason to include this case on this page. There's no coverage of it after it happened and very little to no analysis in WP:SECONDARY sources. Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:11, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Ok this thing is already giving me a headache. Do what you like. Mcorrlo (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

"religious fanatics, like the Christians who grilled people alive" The remark reminds me of an old Arkas comic strip about a Christian and a Muslim warrior who are both in heaven, but continue arguing about their differences throughout their afterlife. An angel remarks that both men have decapitated hundreds of people, the only difference is that one of them had one additional victim in comparison to the other one. Indeed, there is very little difference between the crimes of religious fanatics. Dimadick (talk) 13:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM, there are plenty of other places to discuss this. Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:07, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Mcorrlo, can you give the sources that describe this killing? Then the discussion would be more fruitful. Alaexis_¿question? 18:38, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello Alaexis

i.e:

Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God is not great. Twelve. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-446-57980-3.

(2007-05-31). "Gaza Taliban?". New Humanist. Retrieved 2025-04-08.

Pappé, Ilan (2015). Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid. Zed Books. p. 226. ISBN 978-1783605897.

Brenner, Björn (2017). Gaza under Hamas. I.B. Tauris. p. 134. ISBN 978 1 78453 777 7.

"The Bedouin Judge, the Mufti, and the Chief Islamic Justice: Competing Legal Regimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories". مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية (in Arabic). Retrieved 2025-04-08.

"MIFTAH - Hamas Admits Its Gunmen Shot Betrothed Woman in 'Honour Killing'". MIFTAH. Retrieved 2025-04-08.

"A Question of Security". Human Rights Watch: 54. 2006-11-06. Mcorrlo (talk) 20:38, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

References

“Repeated offers of a truce”

This is a pretty bold and controversial characterization of Hamas’ positions and offers . This is currently included in the lede, it is only cited to a single work authored in 2008 which does not actually support that specific characterization. If relevant, substantial, and recent sourcing cannot be provided, then that would underly this being a wholly inappropriate characterization to make in the article (let alone lede) SecretName101 (talk) 09:24, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

That one citation is not the only one we use for this, though that source does support that characterisation and anyway we cite it there in reference to the concept of hudna and its duration (p. 238). As I'm posting this, footnotes 43 and 44 at the end of that sentence contain additional sources that refer directly to the repeated offers of a truce, and it is widely cited in the body as well. This is not at all a bold and controversial characterization of Hamas' positions and offers, it is standard in RS, and was again reiterated last year as we note in the body: Hamas Member of Parliament Khalil al-Hayya, also deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, told the Associated Press in April 2024 that Hamas is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders. The Associated Press considered this a "significant concession", but presumed that Israel would not even want to consider this scenario following the October 2023 attack. Smallangryplanet (talk) 08:58, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 13 April 2025

Description of suggested change: Under the current foreign relations section the following sentence is found:

The United Arab Emirates has been hostile to Hamas designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and Hamas was at the time viewed as the Brotherhood's Palestinian equivalent.

with the current wording it reads as if the UAE are hostile to the fact that Hamas has designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization which isn't true. A better wording might be:

The United Arabs Emirates are hostile to Hamas viewing it as the Plestinian equivalent of the Brotherhood, a designated terrorist organization in the United Arabs Emirates.

 Done Skitash (talk) 23:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 17 April 2025

Description of suggested change: According to Dr. Harel Horev of Tel Aviv University, the purpose of Hudna is to allow the Muslim warrior to rest and gain strength to defeat his enemy. https://dayan.org/he/author/3132 https://www.mako.co.il/news-n12_magazine/6a6d777d11485910/Article-a5fb5fe24a41691026.htm?pId=173113802 Diff: The purpose of Hudna is to allow the Muslim warrior to rest and gain strength to defeat his enemy.

−

ORIGINAL_TEXT

+

CHANGED_TEXT

2A0D:6FC0:89A:FD00:CB0:65DC:DB43:346E (talk) 17:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Dr. Harel Horev is a historian, expert on Palestinian society, and a faculty member at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East Studies at Tel Aviv University. 2A0D:6FC0:89A:FD00:CB0:65DC:DB43:346E (talk) 17:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: We don't have to state the obvious. All truces (or as you called it, a Hudna) are to rest and gain strength 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 17:46, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article about ceasefires, the reasons for their implementation are varied, so my lord is wrong. My comment: Sometimes a ceasefire is made because the gaps between the parties (ideological, economic) cannot be resolved in peace talks. In this situation, you want to avoid fighting (for example, to deal with another enemy, to deal with domestic issues), not to strengthen militarily in preparation for the next conflict. 2A0D:6FC0:89A:FD00:CE6:E43C:7FFC:DA3A (talk) 08:46, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Replacing a Wikipedia (Original Research) narrative with one from one expert source

[This posting is rather ‘long’ and ‘complicated’; I’m sorry for that. Reality sometimes is complicated, wars often are very complicated. Please, do not place reactions half-way this posting. ]

I think, it is relevant for our article to clearly show and tell our audience the real face, the real philosophy, of Hamas.

Current Wikipedia narrative about Hamas’s philosophy

Currently, the basic narrative of the top part (8 sentences) of section ‘Policies towards Israel and Palestine’, and also of the three sentences in the lead section starting with “While initially…”, (with these two passages in the article mutually reinforcing eachother,) is:
Though Hamas at early dates [‘historically’, ‘initially’, in past tense, as opposed to 2005 and later] has had the purpose to (re)establish a (“Palestinian”) state in all of former Mandatory Palestine, starting with an Agreement in 2005 Hamas settled for [“acquiesced to”] the ambition, aim, of realizing merely a state on West Bank and Gaza Strip (that is in ‘the 1967 borders’)
[with twice the side remark that “some” (“scholars”) seem to not endorse this narrative, saying that Hamas retains the long-term objective for a state in all Mand. Palestine].

This Wikipedia narrative was built step by step since April 2023 and later defended by editors (@Iskandar323:, @Vice regent:(=VR), @Smallangryplanet:, and others) who base(d) themselves on short, out-of-context or suggestive, quotes from scholars that stated that Hamas at some point “accepted the 1967 borders”, quotes they interpreted as Hamas abandoning the goal of conquering all mandatory Palestine (as defending editors have revealed in their edit summaries, like: “outdated 1988 stuff”; founding charter is “superseded” and is not telling the “present political position”); but this interpretation was never explicitly stated in the scholarly quotes they refer to.
Today, Wiki contributors may have grown accustomed to this narrative, and consider it a true story; and therefore can be annoyed by this talk posting. (Several editors have already warned me to stop discussing issues linked to this narrative—but that was before I had discovered the ‘Leila Seurat narrative’ that I present today. I’ve had contacts with a few colleagues on talk page, in recent months, who seemed either to not realize, or to prefer to ignore, that the way how Wikipedia presents and organizes (synthesizes) certain (correct) facts can result in a ‘narrative’ that tells more than the referenced sources tell.) Point is though: this current narrative of Hamas’s philosophy and aims is as yet purely a constructed Wikipedia narrative, not narrated as such by any Reliable Source that is referenced in the article.

This Wikipedia narrative in our text seems to me a subtle form of Synthesis. Deliberate or not, the article’s text ‘uses’ five ‘techniques’ (‘fine-tuned’ in two years of editing) to effectively ‘construct’ and support this narrative: [1]it composes a row of five (lead sect.) and four (§’Policies’) statements [repetition is an acknowledged technique in persuasion ] (about 2005, 2006, 2007, 2017, truce offers since 2006 and “tacit acceptance” since 2017) all alluding to a state ‘in 1967 borders’ (= West Bank and Gaza Strip), all clearly contrasting with the directly preceding mention of Hamas’s original (“historical” or “initial”) goal (a state in 100% of Mandatory Palestine), thus suggesting that Hamas’s original purpose has in 2005 been replaced with that 1967-state-purpose; [2]in the lead section the presumed replacing of the old Hamas purpose with the new one is expressed explicitly in the ‘While initially ...’ construction, purely used here to signal the (suggested) contradistinction between a situation ‘initially’ and a fundamentally changed situation in 2005 and later, but not corroborated by any source (although the Wikipedia lay-out suggests that it is): this ‘while’ construction is Synthesis of a Wikipedia contributor; [3]in section §‘Policies’, the change to that new purpose is implicitly emphasized with the starting statement (which otherwise would be a rather superfluous message) that the “Hamas’ policy …has evolved”; [4]the contrast between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Hamas position is further strengthened by the leaving out of this recount (at both passages in the article) the Hamas’s statements that would undermine or weaken the chosen Wikipedia narrative: Haniyeh in Nov.2008 + Dec.2010, Mashal Jan.2024, and Ghazi Hamad Oct.2023 (see Hamas#Evolution of positions); [5]meanwhile, many of the 6 suggestive statements (listed above by [1]) even seem to misrepresent or ‘spin’ the referenced source they pretend to paraphrase, to fit better into that chosen Wikipedia narrative:
”the desire to create a state on 1967 borders”[Baconi] is not ‘ending the Isr occupation and establishing a Pal state on the 1967 borders’;
“Hms will accept the 1967 borders as the basis for a Pal state, with (…) the return of refugees to their homes”[AlJaz] is not ‘Hms accepted the establishment of a P state on the basis of June 4 , 1967’;
“unite in seeking an independent state in Gaza, the W.B. and East J.”[BBC] is not ‘…quest for a Pal state on all territories occupied in 1967’;
“acceptance of the 1967 borders”[Seurat] is not ‘acquiescing to 1967 borders’ (etc.).

Narrative of Leila Seurat, about Hamas’s philosophy

Not only is the above mentioned Wikipedia narrative not attributed to any reliable source; I recently discovered that one of our referred expert scholars — Leila Seurat — in her book displays an essentially different narrative. I’m not suggesting that Seurat owns the last and final wisdom about Hamas, but in a situation where we must choose between a published narrative of a renowned scholar in this field and a (perhaps soothing) narrative composed by Wikipedia contributors, I think we obviously should prefer that narrative of Seurat. As soon as other scholars are shown to adhere to a relevantly different narrative, Wikipedia must ofcourse display all such scholarly narratives in the article. Seurat’s narrative goes like this (see the tagged very long extract of her book, pages 8–18):
After for a short while having adhered to a strict and simple doctrine to the effect that all “Palestine” should be freed from foreign non-Islamic usurping states, Hamas in the early 1990s converted to a double strategy: on the one hand, their “historical” or long-term goal remained the re-establishment of Islamic rule over all of (former Mandatory) Palestine, while on the other hand their short-term or interim policy or solution became to create an Islamic authority on a smaller area through a truce/hudna treaty with Israel, abiding better times to expand this (small) area.
(The Hamas’ “acceptance of the 1967 borders”, in agreements in 2005 etc., as vaguely mentioned in Seurat’s book (p.17), must, in her narrative, logically and consistently, be understood as acceptance for the interim solution Seurat described in her preceding pages (p.8–17). Therefore, the (thoroughly paraphrased) reference, in our current lead section, to Seurat’s isolated, out-of-context, mention of “acceptance of 1967 borders … in 2005 [Cairo Agreement], … 2006, [etc.]”, must now be assessed as having been unjustly presented and constructed as part (and corroboration) of the current (unfounded) Wikipedia narrative (see above): ‘acceptance of the 1967 borders for a final settlement of the Palestinian conflict’.)

Rewriting the top part of § Policies towards…

If we stick closely to the wording that is currently used in that top part of that section §Policies towards Israel and Palestine, and retain as much as possible the ref sources currently mentioned there, but replace the (synthesized) Wikipedia narrative (see above in green) with the (sourced) Seurat narrative (see also above in green) and pursue conciseness, we would more or less get this new text:

Initially, in their 1988 Charter, Hamas envisioned an Islamic Palestinian state on all of the territory that belonged to the British Mandate for Palestine (that is, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea).<rf.88-Malley>

As of the early 1990s, Hamas switched to a double strategy: their long-term goal remained the re-establishment of Islamic rule over all of (former Mandatory) Palestine, while their short-term or interim goal became to create an Islamic authority on a smaller area through a truce or hudna treaty with Israel.<rf.44-Alsoos>

For this interim goal, Hamas has repeatedly indicated (2005 Palestinian Cairo Declaration,<rf.36-Baconi> 2006 Palestinian Prisoners' Document,<rfs.89,90,91> 2017 Document of General Principles and Policies,<rf.37-AlJaz> etc.) they would settle for accepting the ‘1967 borders’: West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.

Please note: remarks like <rf.88-Malley> refer to the reference indications in the version of 10 March 2025 (ref numbers often change, the refs themselves hardly).

Please understand, I’m not saying that the sentences I propose to remove from this section (top part) are necessarily all ‘false’, individually; my argument (see above) is, the sentences as ‘collective’ are chosen and organized in a way that results in a narrative (story, tale) that is to be regarded as Original Thought/Research. I therefore simply rewrote this section (top) starting from scratch, that is starting from the authoritative book of L.Seurat, aiming to be concise but also complete enough (my proposed text counts 124 words, the current version counts 194 words).

As you see, I propose to not include again the rather long and arbitrary (biased and unbalanced) descriptions of the Documents of 2005, 2006 and 2017, as now given in this top part. Those descriptions of Documents I believe are not necessary to understand the main line of Hamas’s doctrine, in force since the early 1990s, as described by Seurat(2019), as summarized in my proposed text. If we just retain the wikilinks to those three Documents, people can easily look up what those agreements are about, in a more balanced presentation (endorsed by the Wikipedia community).

Note also: I think the statement about “…tacit acceptance of another entity…” is much too vague to be retained in its current form. The term “acceptance of the 1967 borders” in that statement is not yet defined or mentioned earlier in that section: in such a case a Wikipedia text can not refer to a term, it would be pure suggestion. It is quite possible (and quite likely) that the referred three scholars in their books do define the term; but in that case, Wikipedia should cite or quote how they define it, otherwise referring to the term is either meaningless or suggestion/manipulation. If the scholars somehow refer to the 2017 document (as is suggested, now), Wikipedia should clearly say and corroborate that. Recently, when I asked (in a clarify tag) for a quote from those referenced scholars, Smp answered (23 March) that “full quotes” were given “in talk” discussion. I don’t understand that, for two reasons: in the talk section which he refers to, no such direct quotes are given; and if such quotes do exist, they should be in the article, not only somewhere in an archive of the talk page. But even if we’d have such quotes, we’d still have to consider whether they would add relevant information to the article or to the section.

Ofcourse, these points are open for discussion; but they should not impede us from quickly replacing the current synthesized narrative with the sourced Seurat narrative. (It is quite possible, that accepting my edit proposal of today would make it desirable to also adapt the subsections under ‘Policies towards…’.)

Rewriting three sentences in the lead section

My proposed text, to replace the three lead sentences that now begin with “While initially…”, thus replacing the (synthesized) Wikipedia narrative with the (sourced) Seurat narrative, is:

Initially, Hamas was just seeking a Palestinian Islamic state in all of former Mandatory Palestine. Since the early 1990s, Hamas is following a double strategy. Their long-term goal is still the restoring of Islamic sovereignty over all of Palestine; but their short-term goal is now to first create Islamic authority over part of Palestine (within 'the 1967 borders': West Bank and Gaza Strip <rfs.33,34,35>), through a truce (hudna) with Israel.

Please note: the remark <rfs.33,34,35> refers to the three refs to Seurat+Baconi+Roy, currently mentioned in the lead paragraph, with the numbers they had on 2 April 2025.

My proposed replacing passage is (much) shorter than the existing lead passage but it clearly exposes the essence of Hamas’s purposes since the early 1990s, which is not the case in the current Wikipedia version. My proposed text refers shortly to the aspect of hudna. I see no reason to retain the current lead statement about ‘truce offers…seen by many as being consistent with a two-state solution’ because it is mysteriously vague and not stated by any ref source: what on earth means: “consistent with a two-state solution”? Which two-state sol.(tss) is meant, exactly? What would it mean that an offer is ‘consistent’ with a ‘solution’ which is yet nothing more than a hypothetical (Wikipedia-)idea? In the four sources linked, no one says “consistent” (no one is not “many”), and only two people (2 is not “many”) say that hudna is more or less the same as two-state solution – but defining tss as potentially a temporary arrangement, which contradicts the Wikipedia definition of tss.

As for the current message in the lead about “without recognizing Israel”: what does Wikipedia understand as ‘recognizing[rcg] Israel’? In our article’s section with that title, rcg is compared with ‘accepting [certain] borders’, but also with ‘accepting/acknowledging an entity’, and with ‘not aspiring to one state in Palestine’, and with ‘working with the existing system’, and with ‘respecting agreements’, etc., etc., etc.. This is multiply ambiguous. Any news source (including Wikipedia) is responsible for its own language, and if a source/website/institution (like Wikipedia) wants to be taken serious they should be consistent in their (own) definitions of the words they use; but as long as Wikipedia is unclear or (extremely) ambivalent about what their word ‘recognition (of Isr.)’ means, I see no point in confusing readers with that current message in the lead. Besides that: my proposed lead text seems to me rather clear (as opposed to the current lead text) about what future Hamas sees for the state of Israel.

If you still think, it is necessary to say more, in the lead, about that hudna and/or about that recognition, please give a clear motivation why you think that; such discussions or disagreements however should not hinder us from quickly replacing the current synthesized narrative about Hamas’ philosophy and policies with the sourced Seurat narrative.

History of edits, protests, and talk discussions

The first vague contours of this current Wikipedia narrative appeared in April 2023, but then only in section ‘Policy positions’. On 12 October 2023, the narrative was inserted also to the lead section, and quickly became much more articulate, and (thus) probably for many contributors disturbing, unbearable. This led to an intense editing struggle of at least two months and seven days, in which ten editors attempted to weaken or remove (part of) the narrative that today still is in the lead of the article (see top of this posting), while Vice regent (VR) kept restoring ‘his’ narrative and regularly making it sharper or clearer. The first 37 days of this struggle it was only VR defending ‘his’ (Wikipedia) narrative, against 5 opponents; as of 18November VR got help in defending his narrative from @Selfstudier:(18Nov), Iskandar323(23Nov), and Nableezy(16Dec).

Those ten protesters until 17Dec23 made 14 critical edits, weakening or removing the narrative I started this posting with, which all 14 were reverted; eight of those 14 indeed had a rather weak or no motivation. But of the six critical edits that had been motivated with reasonable arguments (from @Alaexis:, @Dovidroth:, @Yair rand:, @Eliezer1987:, @Homerethegreat:), two were reverted by VR without argument, one with a blatant lie(or ‘mistake’?18Dec2023,03:21), two with a nonsense ‘argument’(21Nov.00:57, 24Nov), and one was reverted by Selfstudier with a fantasy(18Nov). Presumably, those five serious critical editors were either hit-and-run(making a ‘good’ or at least serious edit but not visiting the page again to see if it had survived) or didn’t want to risk a fight with VR, otherwise they would have persisted or taken their criticism to the talk page. Those four defenders meanwhile appeared very convinced of their own narrative (the 1988 charter is “superseded”, “outdated stuff” , etc., they stated); nevertheless, VR’s constant (and deliberate) ignoring and misleading of serious opponents, through at least 55 days in a row, to me seems a grave violation of good Wikipedia manners.

On 13Oct2023, an RfC talk discussion was started over whether the (presumed) fact should be mentioned in the lead that “Hamas [is] accepting the 1967 borders”. Seven out of 14 participants voted that “Hamas is (…) accepting the 1967 Israeli-Palestinian borders, post 2017”, this led the administrator on 13Nov2023 to conclude to a “consensus that Hamas accepts the 1967 borders”. But there had been no consensus nor discussion about how that should be phrased in the article, and no discussion nor consensus about what it means that ‘Hamas accepts the 1967 borders’. The administrator stated that Hamas’s acceptance of 1967 borders had several times been “reflected” in edits prior to 13Nov, but I don’t presume this means or implies that the article could never be changed again after the version of 13Nov2023,00:18, nor that Hamas’s ‘acceptance of the 1967 borders’ can’t be interpretated or phrased differently than it was on 13Nov2023.

Two further talk discussions were started, one by defender Selfstudier(23Nov23), one by critic Marokwitz(17Dec2023). Neither of them resulted in a constructive discussion, because neither posed a clear editing issue or dilemma. In that vague discussion of 23Nov, VR (in an undated and unsigned talk posting on 24Nov2023,04:00) posted “17 scholarly sources that say Hamas accepted the 1967 borders”. No one in that discussion section, nor in any edit summary, had ever denied that, so apparently VR in late November23 still didn’t understand that not this ‘acceptance’ was the contentious issue but the way how it was being interpreted and presented, ‘narrated’, in the article (as part of narrating the evolution of the Hamas ideology). (By the way, all those 17 scholarly quotes of VR seem compatible with the summary of Seurat’s narrative that I today propose to replace in the article.)

On 15Dec2023, VR reverted an edit of critic Marokwitz, not by refuting M’s arguments but by (incorrectly) stating that his(VR’s) version had received “consensus” in November. No, the declared consensus of 13Nov2023 I believe was ‘that Hamas accepts the 1967 borders’ but was not about how that should be (interpreted and) phrased in the article.

My own earlier attempts, rebuffed with remarkable (dubious) arguments

Personally, I’ve previously made three attempts to remove the, today still current, (VR-)narrative in the lead, that I describe in the top of this posting: 11Sep2024, 25Sep, 12Oct. A big difference with today is, that back in 2024 I had not yet read the book of L. Seurat which today enables me to present a clear, sourced (consistent, convincing) narrative instead of the current Wikipedia (Original Research) narrative. Nevertheless, it seemed to me not civil or correct that those three attempts all were quickly reverted with nonsensical, arrogant, vague, irrelevant and/or incorrect ‘arguments’. Like: you can’t remove material when removing it is “unjustified”(???); your edit is “controversial”(??by what standard?what is against the edit??); you have “no consensus” for your edit(??you deprive me of my editing rights??);

‘long-standing consensus’(12Oct2024): I don’t know what you mean by that. Some editors tend to think, that if some text is since a long time, say a year, in Wikipedia, there must be a ‘consensus’ that that text is correct. No: it means only, that at some moment one editor apparently has presumed the text to be correct. Ofcourse the psychological effect can be that readers, but especially some editors, think: well, if a serious medium as Wikipedia displays this text for over a year, it will probably be true, ‘otherwise someone would already have changed it’ (Wikipedians tend to have great trust in Wikipedia – in the outside world though I regularly notice a lot more scepticism towards our reliability). But no, we have no policy or rule that says that after a certain time, texts automatically become sacred, untouchable, ‘consensus’. In this case, this narrative is in the article since two years, produced not by some consensus-agreement but by two independent individuals. Since 12Oct2023 it has been attacked by eleven or more editors in at least nineteen edits, and defended in reverts (often with dubious ‘arguments’, see above) by seven or more individual editors, who until now simply have appeared more tenacious than those eleven (or more) critics.
The only formal consensus(13Nov2023) reached or declared on this issue, among 7 or 8 participants, is that ‘Hamas accepts the 1967 borders’; but, as I argued above, I don’t think my proposed text contradicts the declared consensus of 13Nov2023. Giving in though to the reasoning that a text that exists since over a year in Wikipedia for that reason alone must be ‘consensus’ and can never be altered anymore, regardless which arguments someone gives for altering it—because several Wikipedians propagate that reasoning and most of the others don’t want to hurt their feelings—would probably do no good to the credibility and reliability of Wikipedia in the outside world.

Therefore: colleagues cannot forbid someone to edit (as one colleague recently did to me); but they also cannot revert someone’s edit only on the ground that it did not have a consensus beforehand (as recently was done on page Hamas). This posting here is merely meant to inform the colleagues about my plan, and to hear if people perhaps can give advice for improving my proposal.

For people wishing to react, even though this is not yet a formal RfC I’d like them to start their reply with one of these codes:

1-- Agreed with the purpose to replace current (OR) narrative with mentioned and sourced Seurat-narrative.

2-- Agreed with the general idea, but suggestions in advance to improve my proposed edit.

3-- Not agreed (preferably with reasons, arguments).

4-- Other reaction. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

References

Corriebertus (talk) 21:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)