Islamic Covenant

Dan Fisher’s otherwise illuminating article on a new Islamic covenant (Part I, Sept. 5), produced by leaders of the intifada in Gaza, failed to delineate the crude anti-Semitic canards that its authors used to justify calls for a holy war to destroy Israel. Wiesenthal Center researchers have independently reviewed the 40-page Hamas declaration. Here are some examples:

Clause 28: Informs Palestinians that “Zionists . . . use penetration and espionage (by) Free Masons, Rotary International and Lions Clubs . . . for the sake of Zionism.”

Clause 22: “Zionists’ enormous material riches . . . gained control of international media, news agencies, newspapers, publishing houses . . . detonated revolutions . . . (including) French and Communist Revolutions.”

Clause 32: Cites the infamous Czarist hate tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as proof that Israelis “after Palestine . . . aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates.”

After reviewing this document and other statements by a key group involved in the current conflict in the Middle East, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that for many, the current challenge facing the Jewish state is not over the final demarcation of its borders, but over its very right to exist. The question now is whether those in the international community who so rigorously scrutinize every Israeli action and statement during the intifada will now condemn this treacherous document and urge moderate Arab leades to do the same.

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER

Associate Dean

Simon Wiesenthal Center

Los Angeles