Hamas and the Preaching of Hatred

As much as the defense of human rights is contingent on the just administration of law and the proper protections that the law offers, it equally depends on the attitudes of populations. Whatever the law may be on the books, policemen and women, soldiers in the field, prosecutors and average citizens all become responsible for the protection or violation of human rights.

What goes on in an interrogation room reflects the attitudes held by society at large or at the least the judgment of peers with whom the interrogators interact. Suicide bombers who kill people buying their groceries in the market would not feel that they were doing ‘holy' work were they not supported in these feelings by family, friends, and religious and national leaders. Civilization as we know it depends on the cultivation of attitudes which respect human dignity, which respect the rule of law and which does not caricature and demonize others because of their race, religion or gender or sexual orientation.

This of course is the fundamental understanding inculcated in the very first chapter of Genesis which declares that the human being is created in the image of God. Rabbinic Judaism expounded the implicit ideas of this passage of the creation story, "Why was the first human created singly? So that no one can say my lineage is more significant than yours."
In this light, it is especially disturbing to read a New York Times report that the demonization of Jews has become a regular feature of Friday preaching in the mosques of Gaza. "At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and ...referred to Jews as ‘the brothers of apes and pigs,' while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control."

As the article points out such hatred spreads to a new generation and the cycle of hate becomes difficult to break. This kind of rhetoric makes the possibility of peace all the more distant and insures that many citizens of Gaza, perhaps especially those who consider themselves religiously zealous, will see themselves as fulfilling their religious obligation by inflicting the greatest pain and suffering that they can upon Jews in Israel and elsewhere. An atmosphere of hate is a tinderbox for violence.

Bernard Lewis, whom I was acquainted with while we were both living in Princeton, has consistently argued that there are religious streams in the Arab world which have become sources of anti-Semitism, republishing notorious materials accusing Jews of being involved in a world wide conspiracy and even arguing that Hitler's failure was in not completing the task of exterminating the Jewish people. Along these lines, religious preachers talk of Jewish opposition to Mohammed and of the need to wage an eternal war against Jews.

If the fight for human rights is to mean anything, it must rest on the promotion of common human decency. Governments and the world community have to work at reigning in activities which promote hatred of other people and which can only serve to spawn the worst kinds of violence and suffering.