IWSA

As part of the workshops and meetings on Palestine Studies knowledge-acquisition, Department of Western Asia and Central African Studies and the Iranian World Studies Association held a professional meeting on Hamas new document on Saturday, May 13, 2017, in Iran Hall of the Faculty of World Studies. Dr. Ruyvaran, Dr. Raja’ifar, professors, and Saber Gol Anbari and Seyed Jafar Razavi, students of Palestine Studies spoke in the meeting. Hamas new document, which is their first since 1988, has attracted experts’ attention throughout the region and inside Iran. These ideas in Iran could be generally discussed based on two points of view. First is the point of view that tends to consider the new document to be against Hamas fundamental goals and ideals and a retreat before Israel, and the second is the point of view that does not recognize the new document to be against the organization’s basic principles. The emergence of these two trends required a scientific discussion between the advocates of each trend. Therefore, two groups constituted of a professor and a student, participated in the discussion and talked about their ideas in a two-hour meeting. The two sides’ arguments could be categorized as textual and contextual. In textual arguments, issues such as 1967 borders, ignoring the relationship between Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, eliminating negative stands against Jews, and changing the description of Palestine to the Palestinians national land were discussed. On the other hand, Hamas focus on Israel illegitimacy, fighting for Palestinian liberation, introducing armed resistance as the main method of resistance, defending the right of Palestinians to live all over the land, and rejecting Oslo agreement were discussed as reasons to assert Hamas devotion to its principles. This point of view considers many objections of the first point of view to be positive reactions. The new Hamas document is identified as legal, political, and calculated text which increases the chance for Hamas to defend its stance among various regional and international levels. Contextually, various issues, including the changes in Hamas regional allies and in the organization’s discourse, were considered.