The Reason for Proscribing Hamas is not Fighting Terrorism but Chilling Free Speech in Britain and Intimidating Pro-Palestinian Journalism
Barrister Frank McGinnis explaining why Hamas is not a ‘terrorist organisation’, humiliating Peter Cardwell of Talk Talk TV in the process
Most people know what terrorism is. It is the Manchester Arena bombing which killed 22 young people at the Ariana Grande Concert in 2017. The perpetrators, the Abedi brothers, had a very close relationship to MI5 which encouraged them to go to Libya and join Jihadist groups fighting Col. Gaddafi. Terrorism is the London Bridge or the Bataclan attack in Paris which killed 130 people. [see Manchester Arena bombing inquiry delivers cover-up “in the national interest]
Terrorism consists of random attacks on innocent people, often for racist or sectarian reasons. It is usually carried out by groups which are lack a popular base. State terrorism, which is the major form of terrorism, is usually conducted by racist and imperialist authoritarian states.
Israel is clearly engaged in state terrorism of the Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank. This stems from Israel’s settler colonial and Jewish Supremacist view of Palestinians as the untermenschen.
Western leaders such as Starmer and Trump support Israeli state terrorism because they see the Israeli State as their guard dog, a racist Rottweiler which is attempting to achieve hegemony over the Arab region. They are not only willing to go along with its ethnic cleansing but, as the Genocide in Gaza unfolds, they are also prepared to support the extermination of the Palestinian population whilst denying there is a genocide.
The Flag of the al-Qassam Brigades
As John Dugard, a Professor of International law and an ad-hoc judge of the International Court of Justice observed, ‘‘The label of ‘terrorist’ is ‘a bid to discredit and silence opponents’. In the 1980s Thatcher and Reagan called the ANC a terrorist organisation and Nelson Mandela remained on the United States terrorist watch list until 2008.
Gaza is a post-apocalyptic killing zone: UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini | UpFront
The accusation of ‘terrorism’ is being used to close down free speech on Palestine and Hamas is the pretext. Previously it was the PLO which was demonised. If the system of proscription had been in operation 50 or 60 years so then support for any national liberation or anti-colonial movement would have been a criminal offence.
Hamas is not a terrorist but a resistance group. It hasn’t blindly killed large numbers of innocent civilians, despite Israel’s atrocity propaganda.
October 7 wasn’t a terrorist attack although some innocent Israeli civilians died, in so far as a population which is highly militarised and integrated into the army can ever be described as innocent. Despite the lurid stories of 40 Beheaded Babies, it turned out that just one Israeli baby died and that was accidental, a bullet through a window.
The organisation responsible for spreading much of this atrocity propaganda, Zaka, an ultra-orthodox NGO, was later revealed in Ha’aretz to be in precarious financial health and to have tried to take advantage of the tragedy to garner donations. Before October 7, the organization faced insolvency. In the time since, says a source at Zaka, they have raised over 50 million shekels ($13.7 million.
Ha’aretz gave the following example of how Zaka works:
“We saw a woman, around 30 years old, [and] she was lying on the floor in a large puddle of blood, facing the ground,” said a Zaka volunteer tearfully in an account posted on Zaka’s social media accounts. “We turned her over in order to place her into the bag.
“She was pregnant,… Her stomach was swollen, and the baby was still attached by the umbilical cord when it was stabbed, and she was shot in the back of the head. I don’t know if she suffered and saw her baby murdered or not.”
‘This horrific incident, which the Zaka volunteer alleged occurred in Be’eri, simply didn’t happen, and was one of several stories that have been circulated without any basis. There is no evidence for this incident, and no one in the kibbutz has heard of this woman. A Zaka senior official admitted in a conversation with Haaretz that the organization knows the incident didn’t occur.’
A total of 39 children (aged under 18) died, or 3.42% of the total Israeli casualties. Compare that to the death of more than 20,000 Palestinian children, a third of the total casualties.
These cars were not destroyed by Hamas but by Israeli tank shells and hellfire missiles – Hamas did not have such heavy weaponry
On October 7, one third of the Israelis who died, 373, were military and police. Many, perhaps the majority, of the rest were killed by Israel itself as part of the Hannibal Directive. See How Israel killed hundreds of its own people on 7 October
The breakout from Gaza on October 7 was a legitimate resistance operation by those whose land had been occupied for 57 years. For years Palestinians in Gaza had been subject to massive Israeli bombing (Operations Cast Lead, 2008-8; Operation Pillar of Defense, Operation Protective Edge, 2014; the Great Return March and many other such attacks. Israeli military called such attacks ‘mowing the grass’.
October 7 was no different from the fight of the Vietnamese against the Americans half a century before. October 7 was the Palestinians’ Tet Offensive.
How The Tet Offensive Changed The Vietnam War | History
On 20 December 2023 I was arrested in a dawn raid by the Counter-Terror Police for ‘expressing an opinion or belief supportive of a proscribed organisation’ i.e. Hamas. I was not arrested for supporting the Israeli state, which has now killed a recorded 60,000+ dead, a figure which researchers in July 2024 in the Lancet suggested was already over 180,000.
The charge was later amended to include ‘inviting support for a proscribed organisation’ which is puzzling since I’ve never supported Hamas politically nor invited anyone else to support it – whatever support means.
Many other Palestinian solidarity activists have also been arrested since my arrest.
These are wholly political charges and boil down to supporting a group that the British government doesn’t support or not supporting British foreign policy which is unquestioning support for Israeli state terrorism. ‘Terrorism’ has been redefined in such a way that it could include virtually any group the British government disapproves of. It is defined in s.1(1) Terrorism Act 2000 as:
the use or threat of action designed to influence the government, an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public or for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. ,
serious violence against a person, serious damage to property or endangers a person’s life, or creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system. (s.1(2) Terrorism Act 2000)
Under this definition if Hamas is a terrorist group then so is the Israeli state. The decision as to who is and is not proscribed has nothing to do with a factual definition of terrorism and everything to do with political decisions.
Not only is Hamas proscribed but so is the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party, which has been fighting against the Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan for freedom for the Kurdish people.
Erdogan has just gone and gaoled and removed from office his main opponent, Ekrem İmamoğlu,, the Mayor of Istanbul. Because British foreign policy is based on supporting the Turkish dictator it has outlawed his opponents. If the label of ‘terrorism’ applies to anyone it is Erdogan.
Last year the Metropolitan Police used this as an excuse to conduct a racist raid on a Turkish community centre in London and arrest 6 people.
Whilst there is an argument for proscribing groups that explode bombs, killing and maiming innocent people on the streets of Great Britain, there is no justification whatsoever for proscribing either Hamas or the PKK.
The Police, have done nothing to investigate or prosecute Britons who fight in Gaza as part of the Israeli army and who commit war crimes under the International Criminal Courts Act 2001.
On April 7 lawyers led by Mike Mansfield KC handed a 240 page dossier to the Met. It is noticeable that the Met didn’t need a dossier compiled by lawyers to raid dozens of peoples’ homes on bogus ‘terrorism’ charges. Mansfield described what is happening as the ‘destruction of humanity’ in Gaza
The ICCA makes war crimes an offence even when committed outside Britain. The Police have been eager to do the government’s dirty work when it comes to arresting and harassing Palestinian activists.
The Rationale for the Proscription of Hamas is Paper Thin
The military wing of Hamas, the Al Qassam Brigades, were proscribed in 2001 but the civil wing of Hamas, was only proscribed by Priti Patel in 2001. This proscription is particularly iniquitous. The justification for proscribing Hamas’ political wing are given here. They are paper thin and transparently dishonest. As the European Council on Foreign Relations said
A motion to label the entire Hamas movement as “terrorists” is an attempt to score political points at the cost of a peacemaking strategy for Israel-Palestine.
Hamas has never conducted an operation on British soil or outside Palestine. The justification for its proscription is disingenuous. It is justified on the grounds that it has fired rockets at Israel, has killed Israeli civilians including 2 children, has launched incendiary balloons at Israel and has training camps in Gaza to teach children how to fight.
On all these grounds Israel is a terrorist state which has killed many thousands of times as many Palestinian children. This is the depth of the racism of the British state. One Israeli child is worth more than 10,000 Palestinian children.
Irish trauma surgeon Dr Morgan McMonagle
There is no acknowledgment that Israel is an illegal occupier of Gaza or Israel’s 17 year old siege. Nor that there is an international law right to resist an occupier.
Investigating war crimes in Gaza I Al Jazeera Investigations
That is why it is important to support the legal attempt, by a group of human rights lawyers, to have Hamas de-proscribed in Britain. The proscription has no justification other than to please the Zionist lobby and the US government.
Hamas launches legal challenge against UK terror designation
Why the Proscription of the Political Wing of Hamas is Genocidal
In November 2021 Hamas’s political wing was proscribed. This was the party that won a majority in the last free elections in 2006. Once again Western imperialism shows its contempt for democracy when it doesn’t like the results.
Proscription implies that those Palestinians who voted for Hamas were also terrorists. But it is even worse than that.
Thousands of ordinary Palestinians – doctors, nurses, ambulancemen, teachers, lecturers, refuse collectors etc. are also members of Hamas’s political wing. They have nothing to do with its military wing, the Al Qassam brigades.
Yet by proscribing the political wing the British government is saying that ordinary civilians are also terrorists and therefore legitimate targets. What that meant was that Israel could justify the fact that it has attacked every hospital in Gaza on the grounds that it was attacking terrorist doctors and health workers. By proscribing the political wing of Hamas Britain is legally justifying Israel’s genocide. This makes Britain a party to the genocide.
The Proscription of Hamas is Designed to Prevent a Peaceful Settlement
In the course of The Troubles in Ireland there were many Tories and Unionists who demanded the proscription of Sinn Fein, which is now the biggest party in Northern Ireland. The IRA was proscribed but Sinn Fein wasn’t. If the government of the day had listened to these voices then there would have been no Good Friday agreement in 1998 or peace in Northern Ireland. Thus the proscription of Hamas’s political wing is an obstacle to any peaceful settlement.
The proscription of Hamas has also had a third effect. As Jonathan Cook says it makes journalists and writers, have to look over their shoulder in case anything they write might fall foul of the Terrorism Act. In other words it chills free speech, which was the real intention of the Terrorism Act.
Cook, a journalist for 36 years, has written for The Guardian, The Observer and The Times among other papers. His Report, the ‘CHILLING EFFECT OF COUNTER-TERRORISM POWERS ON JOURNALISM’ is part of the case for the deproscription of Hamas. This is what he says:
C. CHILLING EFFECT ON JOURNALISM
10. Over the past several months, I have been watching with growing professional alarm – and personal trepidation – what I can only describe as a campaign of political intimidation and persecution of a number of journalists in the UK. The journalists who have been targeted share one thing in common: they report and comment on Israel’s actions in Gaza from a critical perspective that judges those actions to be genocidal – in line with the suspicions of the International Court of Justice. They also criticise the British government as being complicit in that genocide.
11. The investigation by the police of these journalists has been justified under an expansive interpretation of both Section 12 of the 2000 Terrorism Act and Sections 1 and 2 of the 2006 Terrorism Act. These laws tightly restrict commentary about Hamas and other Palestinian organisations the UK government has proscribed. That proscription applies not only to Hamas’ military wing, which is committed to armed resistance against Israeli colonisation, but against Hamas’ political wing, which is the elected government of Gaza.
12. I now find myself in a situation where, for the first time in my 36-year professional career, I am no longer sure what by law I can write or say in my capacity as a journalist on an issue of major international importance. I now live with the fear that, by writing critically about events in Gaza, I risk a dawn raid by counter-terrorism police on my home in front of my children, the confiscation of the electronic devices I rely on for my work, and my possible arrest, leading potentially to terrorism charges being laid against me.
13. I reported for two decades from Israel, where highly restrictive military censorship laws apply to journalists, especially during times of military conflict. But I never felt as worried about being targeted for my journalism in Israel – even when I was reporting critically on its 2006 war with Lebanon – as I do now in the UK.
14. This is an unprecedented and shocking situation – and one that can only have a dangerous, chilling effect on journalism relating to the Israel-Palestine conflict, my area of expertise. Until recently I would have considered these developments simply impossible in Britain, given a long and cherished tradition of press freedom. We appear to be entering a very dark time for journalists, especially those who do not have the institutional backing of a major news organisation.
The proscription of Hamas has little or no effect on Hamas itself, since Hamas isn’t based in or operating in Britain.
What it does have an effect on is the right to dissent from British foreign policy on the Middle East and Israel in particular. The Terrorism Acts are consciously being used by the Police to prevent criticism of the government’s foreign policy under the guise of combating terrorism. At the same time the Police refuse to investigate and prosecute those who are part of the genocide in Gaza under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.
What the proscription of Hamas for being a ‘terrorist’ group also does is allow the British state to arm and support Israeli terrorism and genocide in Gaza.
Tony Greenstein
It is also worth reading the ‘Written evidence submitted to the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs’ for “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” inquiry (IPC0109) by Professor Jeroen Gunning (King’s College London)
