Key Takeaways:
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On International Holocaust Memorial Day, a newly published report reveals how Hamas’ internal media guide admits to deliberate deception: Antisemitism isn’t rejected, just hidden to better manipulate Western audiences.
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Euphemisms replace truth: The document instructs spokespeople to swap explicit hatred for sanitized language to mask genocidal intent.
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Media manipulation is strategy, not accident: Hamas’ messaging playbook confirms how Western platforms are systematically exploited.
As the world pauses this International Holocaust Memorial Day to remember what happens when hatred is spoken plainly, acted on openly, and ignored too long. It is a day meant to sharpen moral clarity. That is precisely why a newly revealed Hamas document matters now.
Because it shows Hamas understands the Holocaust very well. Not as a crime. But as a messaging problem.
A 2022 Hamas internal document, seized by the IDF in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war and recently made public, lays out a sophisticated strategy for manipulating Western audiences by scrubbing antisemitism from its external language while preserving it internally. The goal is not moderation. It is concealment.
The booklet, titled “Guide for the Palestinian Speaker in the World,” reads less like ideology and more like a public relations manual. Its purpose, Hamas explains, is to help spokespeople “achieve positive media attention” and win sympathy in Western media environments.
The method is deliberate double speech.
On page 7, the guide explicitly instructs Hamas representatives to avoid references that trigger Western sensitivities, including Nazism and the Holocaust. “One must be aware of the great sensitivity and heavy baggage associated with certain concepts in the Western world,” the document states, warning against mentioning “Nazi practices” or “the Holocaust” when addressing non-Muslim audiences.
Antisemitism Vs. Optics
The problem, Hamas explains, is not antisemitism. The problem is optics.
The guide goes further. It warns speakers not to say “the Jews” or “the Jewish lobby,” not because such claims are false, but because they “harm the Palestinian discourse” by making it appear racist and extreme.
It explicitly cautions against invoking classic antisemitic conspiracy theories such as “Jewish control of the media” or citing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not because they are lies, but because they damage Hamas’ image and help Israel’s “propaganda.”
In other words: don’t stop thinking it. Just don’t say it out loud.
One of the document’s most revealing passages openly identifies Jewish historical suffering as an obstacle to Hamas’ global campaign. The guide complains about “the influence of the historical suffering of Jews in Europe,” particularly in Germany, where references to a “historical obligation toward Jews” today are said to justify “unfair bias toward the Zionist entity.”
This is not a rejection of antisemitism. It is an admission that antisemitism is inconvenient.
Approved Glossary
To manage this, Hamas even provides a glossary of “incorrect” terms and their approved replacements. “Killing Jews” should never be said. The preferred phrase is “killing the Zionist occupier.” The distinction is tactical, not moral.
What emerges is a clear picture of how Hamas adapts its language to Western ears while maintaining an internally genocidal worldview. It is the rhetorical equivalent of laundering bloodstains out of a uniform before stepping in front of a camera.
This matters because it works.
Western media regularly platform Hamas-linked figures who speak fluently in the sanitized language outlined in this guide. Phrases like “colonial project,” “resistance,” and “international law” replace explicit calls for Jewish eradication. The result is a movement that presents itself as rights-based while practicing mass murder.
HonestReporting has repeatedly documented how Hamas manipulates global media narratives, coercing journalists in Gaza and shaping coverage through fear and disciplined messaging. The guide confirms this is not incidental. It is policy.
On Holocaust Memorial Day, this document should serve as a warning.
Hatred does not always announce itself with swastikas. Sometimes it comes wrapped in human rights language, carefully edited for Western consumption, while instructing its speakers to stay silent about the very genocide they admire or aspire to repeat.
Remembering the Holocaust is not only about mourning the dead. It is about recognizing the disguises evil learns to wear.
And Hamas has written the manual.
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