Since the 7 October massacre in which Hamas and other militants killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, it has become common to see Hamas described as a 'jihadist' group. While this label ostensibly makes sense in that Hamas sees its fight against Israel as a form of jihad and 'Islamic resistance,' and some of the group's officials have spoken about a future in which the Muslim world is united under a caliphate, applying the label to Hamas can obscure differences between Hamas and groups that are more conventionally labelled as jihadist: in particular, the 'Salafi-jihadist' groups, of which the most familiar are the Islamic State and al-Qa'ida . For example, Hamas' use of the Palestinian national flag is something that would be rejected by jihadists, who believe that national flags represent identities that deviate from the necessity of unifying Muslims as one political and religious community (that unity being embodied in a future Caliphate).
Moreover, Hamas maintains ties with Iran and refrains from declaring existing governments of Muslim-majority countries to be 'apostate' systems that must be violently overthrown. Hamas' ties to Iran are particularly unacceptable to the Islamic State (which declares Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood from which it derives, to be 'apostates'), and Hamas' general approach to existing governments in the Muslim world is to be contrasted with jihadists around the world who wage insurgent campaigns against Muslim governments in places such as the Sahel and Somalia on the basis of establishing 'proper' Islamic governments in those lands through violent revolution, and then ultimately uniting the Muslim world through those newly established governments.
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