Hamas co-founder and ‘expert on Jewish affairs,’ Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, uses Qur’an to justify killing of Jews

Imagine, Hamas has a longtime “expert” on Jewish affairs. Hamas is not the only group that respects him; he also enjoys esteem from mainstream Palestinians and Islamic dignitaries globally. A report from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) sheds light on this man who has been an instrumental force for decades in driving the hateful Palestinian agenda, while selling it as benign. The report is a critical read for understanding the doctrines of not only Hamas, but also of the Qur’an and Hadith themselves, which have inspired Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Al-Zahar is a prestigious medical doctor with political clout. The ancient hatred of Jews by Muslims was on full display when surrounding Arab states tried to obliterate Israel from since 1948, its founding; this ITIC report sheds important light. “The Doctrine of Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas’ “Expert on Jewish Affairs” – The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,” by Dr. Uri Rossett, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, December 29, 2025:

Overview[1]

• Antisemitism has been at the core of Hamas’ ideology since its establishment in 1988, reflected both in the Hamas Charter (1988) and in the movement’s education system.
• One of the leading representatives of Hamas’ antisemitism is Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the movement’s founders and its senior spokesmen, who is Hamas’ self-styled “expert on Jewish affairs.” Over the years, he has referred to the Jews in his writings and statements using antisemitic motifs to justify the need to expel the Jews from “Palestine.”
• The book Hatred of the Jews – A Historical Legacy, which al-Zahar published in 2020 and copies of which were found by IDF forces during the war in the Gaza Strip, summarizes the core elements of his antisemitic doctrine. He described the Jews as a base, greedy, immoral, cruel, corrupt and treacherous, using blood libels and conspiracies based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
• Al-Zahar also justified the Holocaust, while claiming that close ties existed between Nazi Germany and the “Zionists,” stemming from their “identical interests.”
• Since Hamas is aware that making antisemitic remarks harms it in the international arena, the movement seeks to downplay its views when dealing with foreigners, especially Western foreigners. A document the IDF brought back from the Gaza Strip had instructions for the “Palestinian spokesperson in the world,” one of which was a prohibition against the use of anti-Jewish expressions and an emphasis on the struggle against the “Zionist occupier” and not against Judaism or the Jews.
• Despite the attempt to market a different face to the international community, the doctrine presented by Mahmoud al-Zahar over the years, and published only in Arabic, is evidence of the Hamas leadership’s antisemitism. It dehumanizes Jews and provided inspiration for the atrocities committed during the Hamas terrorist attack and massacre on October 7, 2023….

Mahmoud al-Zahar and the Jews

• Over the years, Mahmoud al-Zahar has repeatedly related to the Jews in his writings, interviews and speeches and his antisemitic statements “justified” the desire to expel the Jews from “Palestine:”
  • Al-Zahar’s earliest book about the Jews was No Future [for Jews] Among the Nations, published in Algeria in 2008, and is regarded as a response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s book A Place Under the Sun, published in 1995. Al-Zahar’s thesis is Jews were a foreign implant and one after another, countries around the world them, and he used quotations from the Qur’an to justify the killing of Jews and as proof that Zionism was destined to disappear because it “has no future among the nations.” A copy of the book was also found aboard the Mavi Marmara flotilla intercepted by the IDF in 2010….

Al-Zahar’s Doctrine as It Appears in Hatred of the Jews – A Historical Legacy

• In 2020 Hatred of the Jews – A Historical Legacy, 138 pages, written by al-Zahar, was published in the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian ministry of culture as part of the national program for Palestinian libraries.In October 2022, a Hamas conference was held in Gaza to mark its publication, at which al-Zahar was represented as head of the Palestinian principles [sic] commission and a member of the Hamas political bureau.…

Al-Zahar’s Antisemitism as a Facet of Hamas Ideology

• Antisemitism has been at the core of Hamas ideology since its establishment. The Hamas Charter (1988) is unapologetically antisemitic, using myths from classical European antisemitism, with explicit reference to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Islamic sources such as the Qur’an and the Hadiths. The Jews are presented in a negative light and as planning to control the entire world by taking over international bodies such as the UN and the media, and organizations like the Freemasons and the Rotary….

The Palestinians in Gaza voted in Hamas (“The Islamic Resistance Movement”), a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot with a laser-focused determination to carry out the destruction of Israel from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea, as is written in the Hamas Covenant and is well known to Palestinians. The same goal is written in the Palestinian National Covenant.

Al-Zahar has also served as Foreign Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, where he was instrumental in advancing the Palestinian cause, to which the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) refers as a central cause to the Muslim ummah. In 2006, when George Bush’s Republican party lost in mid-term elections, al-Zahar in his role as foreign minister attributed the defeat as “another sign that the wind was blowing the Arabs’ way.” Al-Zahar touted US voter anger over Iraq, to which he attributed the Republicans’ defeat. Al-Zahar stated:

Things have turned around … There are major new factors involved, including the American retreat in military terms and in Congress, and new Arab-Islamic action…Instead of plans being proposed to us that do not meet the Palestinian people’s needs, internationally accepted Arab proposals are being made…If we develop this, we could take the initiative in the Palestinian issue out of America’s hands and into those of the international community, which is fairer.”

Al-Zahar’s Palestinian coreligionists and allies, right up to the OIC and the UN, admire him greatly. The Palestinian issue became a key one at the United Nations; much of its presence there is owed to al-Zahar, a dedicated Muslim who quotes the Qur’an to justify Jew-hatred.

Yet Bush saw Islam as a religion of peace.

The extensive ITIC report about al-Zahar, and the fact that he is not globally marginalized is telling, both in regard to the Palestinian culture of “martyrdom,” and to the West’s insistence upon turning a blind eye to all such matters. The report should cause alarm; it likely won’t, however, because the Western mindset and conscience have been battered with propaganda. No matter how much Islamic Jew-hatred is exposed in the very words and actions of Palestinian dignitaries (see Palestinian Media Watch for a steady stream of this murderous hatred), the Western mental block continues. This lack of knowledge will be the downfall of the West; it plays straight into the hands of Islamic supremacists.

The West is egocentric in its own flawed perceptions about how it thinks other peoples and cultures should approach religion. The West has completely failed to understand the expansionary nature of normative Islam, the dedication of Sharia adherents, the hatred of Jews, and more broadly, normative Islam’s disavowal of infidels, in obedience to a principle called al-wala wal-bara. This means “loyalty and disavowal,” and is the idea behind hating infidels as enemies of Allah while supporting all jihadis as doing Allah’s work.

Given the copious information available about Hamas, its founders and doctrines, along with that of other jihad groups and networks — not to mention the 1,400-year history of jihad, and the fact that Christians are still persecuted to this day — ignorance is no excuse. Shame on Islamic water-carrying Christians who have ignored history and turned their backs on their own persecuted brethren. They are destined to end up on the wrong side of history. Such folk exist on both the right and the left, and they’re doing Hamas and its agents such as Mahmoud al-Zahar proud. They have unwittingly become allies of a jihadist death cult, blinded by antisemitism.

October 7 provided a global awakening for some, but the unleashing of antisemitism in the face of the aggressive “globalize the intifada” movement is unconscionable, as are the ongoing efforts to undermine the tiny state of Israel.