“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” So begins the Charter of Hamas, the Islamist group that Israel says kidnapped and murdered the Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaer, and Naftali Frenkel.

Although a previously unknown group has conveniently emerged this morning to claim responsibility, there are three reasons to believe that, when Israel does reveal the intelligence being used by security forces in pursuit of missing Hamas members Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha, it will turn out that Hamas was responsible. (As The Israeli Labour party leader Isaac Herzog, who has seen that intelligence, told the BBC last week.)

The first reason: Hamas kills Israeli kids because it is doctrine to do so

Hamas is ideologically committed to hostility to the West, hatred of all Jews as Jews and, therefore, the absolute rejection of Jewish sovereigntyanywhere in the Middle East. With its roots in the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas considers that it is performing sacred work in killing Jews and destroying Israel. The Hamas charter promises three things: Israel’s destruction, to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” and to “wipe out the organisations which are the enemy of humanity and Islam”. That is why Hamas condemned the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and praised him as a “Jihad Fighter”.

Read this article in full at The Telegraph.