There has been debate on the Diaries about what motivates Hamas. They are willing to die for their cause, to keep shooting missiles into Israel until Israeli military comes in on the ground and kills them. Is it poverty, their living conditions, and the sense of being surrounded in the Gaza by Israel, Egypt, and the sea. Or is it religion--specifically their brand of religion: radical islam (as opposed to moderate islam) that is the primary motivation. Acknowledging that there can be a variety of motives, I contend that Hamas motivation is primarily religious.
I start with the Hamas Charter here
I never read the whole document until a few days ago. In addition to calling for the destruction of Israel (what else is new?), I think any fair reading of the document would have to say it is immersed in radical islam.
It calls for the establishment of sharia law in Gaza. Hamas is homophobic, misogynistic, anti-semitic, anti-Christian and they support many odious causes, like the genocide in Darfur.
IMO, Hamas is the local Gaza chapter of radical islam international. Like the Taliban, Al Queda, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba (which just carried out the Mumbai attack) and so on. Like the leadership in Iran. Radical Islam is at war with the non-muslim world and with moderate muslims. Hamas can't recognize Israel because they believe that no non-Muslim state can exist in formerly Muslim lands.
When I point all this out, posters who disagree say "Hamas doesn't really mean it" or "Hamas will evolve". My contention is that people willing to die as shaheeds (suicide bombers) are not going to change their charter or behavior, simply because we in the west tell them to do so. Consider this:
The consistent need to find explanations other than religious ones for the attacks says, in fact, more about the West than it does about the jihadis. Western Scholars have generally failed to take religion seriously. Secularists, whether liberal or socialists, grant true exploratory power to political, social, or economic factors but discount the plain sense of religious statements made by the jihadis themselves. To see why jihadis declared war on the United States and tried to kill as many Americans as possible, we must be willing to listen to their own explanations. To do otherwise is to impose a Western interpretation on the extremists, in effect to listen to ourselves rather than to them. (page 7)
source
Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror by Mary Habeck
There is a certain hubris on our part to say we know what motivates Hamas better than they do. To think that somehow through exposure to western values, education and democratic political systems, Hamas and the other Radical Islamic groups will alter their outlook. I wish it were so.