Comparisons between Hamas and Nazi Germany

Not to be confused with Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.

Various legal experts and genocide studies scholars have opined that Hamas, a Sunni Islamist group, has a genocidal intent towards Israel similar to that of Nazi Germany, based on the group's 1988 charter, statements by its leaders, and its violent actions, including the Second Intifada, the 2017 charter, and the October 7 attacks. Following the October 7 attacks, a group of Israeli families brought forth a legal complaint alleging that Hamas had committed genocide to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2023. Nonetheless, Hamas has continued calls for the "annihilation" of Israel and vowed to repeat attacks on October 7 "again and again" until Israel's destruction.

Events

Founding of Hamas and Hamas ideology

In his 2010 book A Genealogy of Evil: Anti-Semitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad, American holocaust historian David Patterson argued that "like other Islamic Jihadist movements, Hamas represents not a throwback to a 'medieval mindset,' but a distinctively modern, exterminationist mutation of Jew hatred formented largely by Nazi ideology... Such thinking defined Yassin's position when in 1979 he expanded his political influence with the creation of the Islamic Organisation." According to Patterson, Hamas and the Nazis share a common desire to exterminate Jews as the foundational element of their ideology, and Mujama al-Islamiya's transformation in Hamas, including the formation of an armed enforcer wing inside Gaza in the early 1980s and of the Al-Qassam Brigades in the early 1990d, were directly modelled after the structures of the Nazi party's paramilitary wing, the Schutzstaffel.

Antisemitism scholar Robert S. Wistrich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem argued in 2001 that the "crusade" promoted by Hamas was equivalent to Nazi propaganda prior to the Holocaust, while arguing that downplaying the centrality of antisemitism in this "crusade" would not help moderate Hamas's ambitions.

Joseph S. Spoerl of Saint Anselm College argued in 2014 that Hamas is the Palestinian faction that "most clearly reflects" the ideology of Amin al-Husseini, a leader of Palestinian nationalism in the early 1900s and a Nazi collaborator, noting the antisemitic conspiracies in Hamas's 1988 charter, Hamas's frequent calls for the extermination of Jews, and Hamas's frequent Holocaust denial. Ben Cohen of the Algemeiner Journal argued in 2018 that "Holocaust denial has become both a staple of the Islamist organization’s ideology and — more recently — a political weapon to wield against its growing adversaries in the Muslim world," noting an incident ofa Hamas supporter raising a Nazi flag during the Great March of Return and Hamas's criticism of Saudi religious leader Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa's decision to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day.

1988 Hamas charter

Speaking before the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism in 1996, investigative journalist Steven Emerson noted that the 1988 Hamas charter was "a virulent antisemitic conspiratorial tract that incorporates elements of both Nazi dogma and the notorious turn-of-the-century The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." American scholar of terrorism Bruce Hoffman has compared the 1988 charter to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, arguing that it "spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions" and was "especially noteworthy for its trafficking in odious calumnies and conspiracy theories about the Jewish people and the alleged superhuman influence and power that they exercise over all mankind."

In a 2014 article, American scholar of German history Jeffrey Herf argued that the 1988 Hamas charter, "replaced the Marxist-Leninist conspiracy theory of world politics with the classic anti-Semitic tropes of Nazism and European fascism, which the Islamists had absorbed when they collaborated with the Nazis during World War II," particulary noting Article 22 of the charter, which "could have been taken, almost word for word, from Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish propaganda texts and broadcasts."

Second Intifada

According to American holocaust historian David Patterson, Hamas adopted "another tactic employed by the Nazis" in March 2002, during the Second Intifada, in planning terrorist attacks to occur on days significant in Judaism.

2006 Palestinian elections

German international relations scholar Bassam Tibi compared Hamas's decision to participate in the 2006 Palestinian elections followed by its subsequent imposure of authoritarian rule over Gaza to the Nazi Party's participation in elections during the Weimar Republic, noting that both displayed "contempt for democracy" while "they did not mind taking advantage of the ballot box."

2009 Gaza war

In a February 2009 article in The Guardian, British human rights activist Peter Tatchell argued that "another favourite left and liberal justification of Hamas is that it is less corrupt than its Palestinian rivals in Fatah and that it organises social programmes for the poor. You could say the same about the Nazis, compared to the indulgence and incompetence of some Weimar Republic leaders. No, a few good works do not exonerate Hamas. Yes, their critique of Fatah nepotism, pocket-lining and thuggism has some truth. But the alternative they are offering is far worse."

2014 Gaza war

In 2014, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel took out an advertisment in The New York Times comparing Hamas to Nazis. In response, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network took out a counter-ad opposing the war.

October 7 attacks

See also: Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks

According to Zvika Klein of The Jerusalem Post, "since October 7, the comparison between Hamas and the Nazis passed from a rhetorical device to an entrenched belief among the Israeli public," noting that among Israelis there was "an awareness that Hamas isn't just any terrorist organization but a movement informed by decades-old ideology whose roots reach all the way to Nazi propaganda. The notion of Hitler's impact ending in some Berlin bunker is a Western mirage. Here, in Israel, where that same ideology was resurrected in blood and fire on October 7, nobody has the luxury of such illusions." Tia Goldenberg of the Associated Press noted that the October 7 attacks triggered "painful memories of a calamity of a far greater scale: the Holocaust," especially as the attacks marked the single deadliest day of antisemitic murders since the Holocaust.

Israeli holocaust scholars Liat Steir-Livny and Avinoam Patt wrote in December 2023 that "As scholars who have spent decades studying the history of Israel’s relationship with the Holocaust, we have argued that the Holocaust should remain unique and not be compared with other atrocities... But the October 7 massacres perpetrated by Hamas changed our thinking." Jonathan Brent of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research argued that "the terrorists who savagely attacked Israel have been reared in a culture of genocidal hate that goes back eight decades and was integral to the formation of Hamas and its continued existence."

In his first visit to Israel following the attacks, American president Joe Biden compared the attacks to the Holocaust, saying that "the world watched then, it knew, and the world did nothing. We will not stand by and do nothing again. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever." Ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom Tzipi Hotovely stated that "the actions of Hamas are like Nazi actions. I don’t want to get into the Holocaust comparison but it is something that reminds us of the brutality against Jews in our history." In November 2023, Israeli Minister of the Interior Moshe Arbel announced that he was consulting with government officials to propose a bill that would revoke citizenship from Israeli citizens accused of supporting terrorism, saying that "all those who support Hamas Nazis, they are not one of us."

American historian Waitman Wade Beorn, however, criticised comparisons between Hamas and the Nazis in a 2024 article for Time Magazine, arguing that although "Hamas and the Nazis are both antisemitic groups who murdered Jews in awful and gratuitous ways," people should wary of " the idea that the brutal mass atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people in Israel, were done gleefully, whereas the Nazi atrocities that killed 6 million Jews were not... it's important to note that the idea that Nazi killers were generally reluctant, morally conflicted, or somehow internally ashamed of their actions is ahistorical and dangerous." British development scholar Andrew Brooks of King's College London argued that, while comparing Hamas to the Nazis would be understandable from "a widow in the raw intensity of grief, a victim of rape, or someone facing the nightmare reality of now knowing if they will ever see a kidnapped loved one again," it was not understandable from senior politicians as "Hamas does not pose an existential threat akin to the Third Reich, as Israelis are protected by the overwhelming military superiority of the IDF and are the region's dominant power." British development scholar Robin Luckham has compared claims of Hamas Naziism to Disinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as to Hamas's Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, arguing that "such stereotypes lend spurious veneers of legitimacy to untrammelled violence."

Statements by individuals

Statements by victims of Hamas attacks

In a 1997 speech for the AIJAC, the mother of Nachshon Wachsman, who had been abucted and murdered by Hamas in 1994, described Hamas and other Palestinian factions who used suicide bombings, "cancer in our midst. They must be obliterated, not treated with painkillers. They must be prosecuted as zealously as Nazi war criminals for committing crimes against humanity."

Statements by the international far-right

In his 2021 book Nazi and Holocaust Representations in Anglo-American Popular Culture, 1945–2020, American holocaust historian Jeffrey Demsky noted incidents of far-right Dutch football ultras in the 1990s chanting "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas," a chant that was later repeated in anti-Israel demonstrations in Amsterdam in 2002.

Criminologist Tine Munk of Nottingham Trent University has noted that, following the October 7 attacks, international white supremacists and neo-Nazis offered support for Hamas's actions, and have since actively promoted Hamas propaganda and have used Hamas's language to motivate antisemitic attacks.

Statements by Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli politician and long-serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently compared Hamas to the Nazis. In a rally ahead of the 2006 Israeli legislative election, he compared Hamas's victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election to the rise to power of the Nazis, saying that "No one will defend the Jews if they don’t defend themselves. A few days ago a new bitter enemy rose."

Critising the 2014 Fatah–Hamas Agreements, Netanyahu warned that "Hamas is trying to start another Holocaust," noting that "The main difference between the helplessness of the Jews in the Holocaust to the situation of Jews today is that today we have a strong country with a strong army that defends us." In a 2014 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, he stated that "ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree," comparing them to "another fanatic ideology that swept into power eight decades ago."

Critising South Africa's genocide case against Israel in January 2024, Netanyahu accused South Africa of bringing the case "in the name of Hamas - in the name of the 'new Nazis' - who came to commit genocide on us." At the 2025 International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Netanyahu compared Hamas to "Nazis, like Hitler," saying that "They want to kill, to destroy all the Jews. They openly declare their intent to destroy the Jewish state, and that will not happen."

See also

• Hamas–UNRWA Holocaust dispute

External links

• All-Party Parliamentary Group Israel-UK. 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report Chaired by Lord Roberts of Belgravia, 18 March 2025
• Crowd-sourced documentation of massacres
• Mapping the massacres
• Saturday October Seven (Documentation of massacres)
• Ex-Israeli Defense Minister's Recollection of October 7, 2023

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