As the world pontificated about how the responsibility of governing would prove a moderating influence for Hamas and that the West would wind up having to come to terms with the terrorists as statesmen. The only fly in that ointment is Hamas itself, which had to reaffirm today for the doubters that, once again, it really does hate Israel and wants to see it destroyed:

Militants from Fatah and Hamas capped a tense and emotional day with violent clashes on Friday, while a Hamas leader said the group had no intention of recognizing Israel's right to exist or changing its charter, which calls for Israel's destruction.

"Why are we going to recognize Israel?" said the leader, Mahmoud Zahar. "Is Israel going to recognize the right of return of Palestinian refugees? Is Israel going to recognize Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital?" ...

Until now, Hamas has refused to take part in the Palestinian government because that government emerged from the 1993 Oslo accords with Israel, which Hamas rejected.

Hamas still does not recognize Israel and says it will not change its charter calling for Israel's destruction.

Of course it won't change its charter, and all of the Western aid in the world won't make a difference. Hell, all of the aid the West poured into the PA when Fatah ran the joint didn't get a change to their charter either, so undoubtedly Hamas will not go out of its way to accommodate the Jews. Hamas only has one objective, the one on which its originators founded it: to cause the annihilation of Israel, replaced by an Islamist terror camp that will send its members across the ummah.

They will not succeed, of course, as Israel won't get fooled into thinking that Hamas spent its election cycle joking around. Too many of the Israelis will see the same kind of denial that took place among Western leaders when Adolf Hitler came to power, after having written Mein Kampf, which outlined all his political goals. Despite having published exactly what he wanted to do -- eliminate the Jews and grab as much land in Eastern Europe as possible -- the world thought that governing would force Hitler to moderate his positions. He confounded them by simply turning the Reichstag into a cheerleading squad and terminating German democracy. Seventy years later, no one appears to have learned that painful lesson except the victims of Hitler and their descendants.

Genocidal lunatics do not change their stripes because their party won one election, and Hamas isn't even pretending to do so. Predictions of moderation are nothing more than excuses to avoid taking a stand against terrorists and the people who now overwhelmingly support them. The Palestinians have been the cause of this political generation for decades, and even after a free election where they hoisted the terrorist flag as their emblem, their apologists cannot bear to conclude that they simply refuse to live in peace under any solution but Israel's destruction. Their continued excuses appear now to have more to do with saving face among themselves than in judging reality.

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