Take a look at this copy that accompanied a Reuters’ photo.

UPDATING CAPTION Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks during an interview with Reuters in Damascus January 10, 2007. Hamas acknowledges the existence of Israel is an established fact, the movement’s exiled leader Meshaal told Reuters on Wednesday, softening the militant group’s previous refusal to recognise the Jewish state. Israel is a “reality” and “there will remain a state called Israel, this is a matter of fact,” Meshaal said in an interview. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri (SYRIA)

Can Reuters’ writers and editors really be so ignorant? Or are they doing a little pro-bono propagandizing for Hamas? Of course Hamas leaders acknowledge that Israel exists. Would they send suicide-bombers to murder the imaginary citizens of a non-existent nation? Would they attack Narnia? Conceding that Israel exists in the present — while not acknowledging its right to exist — “softens” nothing. Hamas leaders intend to destroy Israel — precisely because it exists. They believe that is their religious obligation: Land that was once conquered by Muslims can not revert to rule by infidels. It is their faith-based conviction that Jewish state must be replaced by a new caliphate – one that does not now exist but will in the future that they imagine, a future for which they are eager to kill and be killed.