Terror expert explains inside the mind of Hamas 'death cult' killers amid their 'murder orgy' against Israelis

An expert on Hamas said the terrorist group, whose attack on Israel last week was called a "historic win" by a far-left campus organization, believes the destruction of Israel is a key to its desire to see the world subjugated under a radical Islamic caliphate after a Qatar-based leader called for global "Jihad."

Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is an expert on Iran-backed terrorist groups as a senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Schanzer explained the terror group's ideology after last week, Khaled Meshaal, the former chief of Hamas's political bureau for more than 20 years, called for Muslims across the world to get involved in Jihad. 

"The first thing that [Hamas] wants to do is to conquer Israel," Schanzer said. "And then from there, it would like to see the world subjugated to an Islamic caliphate. In other words, a governing structure in the world that is led by Muslims… [since] it believes in Muslim supremacy as a general principle."

"Hamas believes that the conquest of Israel is the first step that is needed along the way. This actually… [is] the sort of thing that we saw from al-Qaeda, from ISIS and others." 

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Schanzer also likened Hamas to a "death cult" because its adherents place no value on life. 

"It embraces this idea of martyrdom to the point that the fighters simply don't care whether they live or die as they battle Israel. It's one of the things that has made Hamas dangerous, even as it has in the past lacked the sophistication necessary to do real damage to Israel," he said. 

Hamas' atrocities against civilians in southern Israel marked the worst days of murders of Jews since the Holocaust. Schanzer added that the intersections between the radical elements of the Palestinian cause and the Nazis go back to that same time period as well, when the mufti of Jerusalem – Hajj Amin Al-Husseini – met with Adolf Hitler to discuss bringing the Final Solution to the British Mandate of Palestine. 

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According to the Nazi record of the meeting, the mufti said Hitler has "sympathy for… the Arab and especially the Palestinian cause…"

It added, "The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely… the Jews… Therefore, they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate." 

Schanzer said the Palestinian movement had never gone through the same de-radicalization from its terrorist activities and anti-Semitism as did other totalitarian movements – like Germany with Nazism. 

Hamas rose to power in the Gaza Strip after the Bush administration pressured Israel to unilaterally swap land for peace in the 2000s. Israeli residents of a settlement bloc in Gaza – Gush Katif – were forced out and Israel also withdrew all of its soldiers. The move created a power vacuum which was then filled with the terror group, and has been a thorn in Israel's side ever since. Hamas frequently fires rockets into Israel or commits terror attacks in Israeli territory, sparking wars that end in ceasefires, with no clear winner or loser.

This time, Schanzer said, Israel is taking a different posture with Hamas. 

"The moment that Israel began to let down its guard was the moment that 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered," he said. "And it's for that reason that the Israelis today say that Hamas has lost its right to exist. And it is for this reason now that Israel is preparing for a war that I think by all accounts is expected to eradicate Hamas in the Gaza Strip." 

"The first thing to point out here is [what Hamas did] was a murder orgy. I don't know how else to describe it," he said. "The last time we saw anything like it was ISIS… Israel, I think, has always known that if the group had its way, it would do this more… It wants simply to murder as many Jews and as many Israelis as it possibly can."

Students for Justice in Palestine called the attack a "historic win for the Palestinian resistance" that caught "the enemy completely by surprise." Other anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses and across the world have expressed solidarity with Hamas violence.

Schanzer, addressing his belief of the origins of the terror apologist sentiment in the general sense, said, "Hamas-aligned NGOs here in the United States have invested years and millions in cultivating an academic army of Hamas apologists. 

"The depravity on display right now is truly difficult to express," he added. "I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like this. The callousness toward a massacre of 1,400 people feels [of its own kind] to me." 

Schanzer said it was possible that Israel would hunt down every single Hamas terrorist responsible for the attack outside of the region "long after the guns in Gaza have gone silent." 

"I think we have seen in Israel's history that it is not afraid to seek retribution in an extraterritorial way. In other words, it's quite possible that we could see Hamas leaders assassinated in multiple other jurisdictions long after the guns fall silent in Gaza," he said.

Schanzer said the atrocities at the festival and nearby kibbutzim carried numerous parallels to the Palestinian terror group – Black September's – attack on Israeli Olympians in Munich, Germany, in 1972.  

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"Black September… slaughtered the Israeli athletes… in gruesome fashion, just as we saw on October 7th. They did so on live television, not unlike the way that a lot of this was broadcast recently on social media. And when the episode was over, Israel went out and found all of the culprits and killed them. And there was a clear message to everyone that this is the price that you pay."

"From Israel's perspective…, they really they put immense value on deterrence. This idea that if you take Israeli lives, if you challenge Israel's right to exist through violence, that you will meet your fate in a most unpleasant way," he said. "I think, right now that the Israelis are out to even to score and to seek retribution for this attack. There is a reputational component to this, as well as the principle of deterrence." 

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