Comment by wolverine876

Thank you for some actual evidence. First, to add some detail from reading it, first the cut off part:

However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

And from p.2, where 'Palestine' is defined geographically, which seems to include much or all of Israel (including Israel in a two-state solution). However, a quick search did not turn up Ras Al-Naqurah or Umm Al-Rashrash.

The Land of Palestine:

2. Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm Al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.

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Second, though I think it obviously weighs significantly on the question, I'll point out some considerations:

* Hamas doesn't speak for Palestinians generally. What does the Palestinian Authority say? Optimally, we'd need information on the Palestinian public now or before Oct 7, when the issue was less politicized and information more reliable.

* Again, the document is significant, but generally, something in a document doesn't reliably tell us the beliefs of the public. Even scripture won't tell you what people are doing or thinking (even the leaders - compare some of their ideas with scripture).

* It's from 2017; I wonder how old the phrase is.

Anyway, hardly criticism; thanks for contributing. It's not an easy question.

> calls for ceasefire appeared while Hamas terrorists weree still in Israel, by no less than U.S. representatives

Warfare, including as currently conducted by Israel, is not the only means of Israel defending itself. IMHO elliding the two seems like an obviously disingenous attack, and it undermines all supporters of Israel by making their other claims equally suspect.

>Again, people may use it trying to say something else, but slogans do not exist in a vacuum. Saying "from the river to the sea" means that all people should be free is akin to saying "arbeit macht frei" is a call for the financial independence of working people.

Their "2017 charter" rather dramatically toned down the language. The original version makes no attempt to be politically correct.

>Again, people may use it trying to say something else, but slogans do not exist in a vacuum.

"From the river to the sea, palestine will be free" implies a desire to see freedom not genocide.

If you're looking for slogans that genuinely impute racist genocidal intent look no further than the Israeli Prime Minister's references to Amalek.

People who say that they support Israel may not believe this imputed genocidal intent is what they support that in a practical sense it is.

> Even in the most charitable interpretations about what happens to the Jews living there, it is a call to replace the state of Israel with a completely different state.

Completely different state appears to be roughly the same state, minus apartheid. If it worked in South Africa, why wouldn't it work here?

That repeats the claim - I'm aware of it from the GGP comment and of course from other public discussion. What I'm looking for is evidence of the claim from reliable sources.

There is a well-established solution to conflict, called democracy. People fight it out in ballots and legislatures; they resolve differences by the universal rules (apply to everyone) in indepedent tribunals (courts; they all are guaranteed human rights.

It doesn't work beautifully or easily or perfectly, but it keeps a lid on things generally. Our recent abandonment of it is awful, and serves only the warmongers, hateful, and power-hungry - the people who benefit from the absence of things like universal human rights.

I am going to answer this as honestly as possible, but this is a personal interpretation (like everything in this hn thread), it doesn’t refer to a free Palestinian state as much as it does to the people. When Israel is inherently setup as a country for Jewish people, that does indeed call for the abolition of the state of Israel as is, but to me that is like saying fighting against apartheid in South Africa was calling for a genocide of whites. It could have been if they would have fought for the need of having an apartheid state, but it wasn’t necessary.

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I understand the claim about that interpretation. Repeating it doesn't help; we got it. If you know of evidence that that's the understanding among Palestinians, that would be great.

Jews, Muslims and Christians have lived in that region relatively peacefully for a long time.

The end of Israel as an exclusionary apartheid state does not have to mean the end of Jews living there, in a pluralist state guaranteeing equal access to Christians, Jews and Muslims to their holy sites and shared ancestral homeland.