Priti Patel piggybacks on apartheid Israel’s “terrorist” branding of Palestinian human rights groups 

By Stuart Littlewood

People here are tired of being told what to think and say by fascist-minded politicians.

Hard on the heels of Israel criminalising six Palestinian human rights groups with no evidence whatsoever, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced that Hamas will be proscribed by the UK government under the Terrorism Act, which means anyone expressing support for Hamas, flying its flag or arranging meetings for the organisation will be in breach of the law. And that could mean up to 14 years in jail.

The Guardian says she told reporters in Washington DC: “We’ve taken the view that we can no longer disaggregate the sort of military and political side. It’s based upon a wide range of intelligence, information and also links to terrorism. The severity of that speaks for itself.” Patel hopes to push the change through Parliament in a move she says will help to combat anti-Semitism.

Ah, so it’s really about anti-Semitism. According to Patel, “Hamas is fundamentally and rabidly anti-Semitic. Anti-semitism is an enduring evil which I will never tolerate. Jewish people routinely feel unsafe – at school, in the streets, when they worship, in their homes and online. This step will strengthen the case against anyone who waves a Hamas flag in the United Kingdom, an act that is bound to make Jewish people feel unsafe.”

So, we’re supposed to believe Hamas can reach right into synagogues in Manchester, Golders Green, Hendon and throughout the UK and frighten the Jewish community? Until now, the UK has banned only Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. Now its political wing is to be outlawed here as it already has been in the US, the EU and Canada.

“… the rock of security is eroded everyday by the real terrorists in the region, apartheid Israel. Israel is the reason for the unrest, slaughter, land theft and vicious oppression of the last 73 years. And Patel is a rabid supporter – some might say an agent – of that racist entity.”

Hamas was formed in 1987 to resist Israel’s illegal armed occupation and confiscation of Palestinians lands and resources that began 40 years before and continue to this day, although some say it was created by Israel to weaken the nationalist Palestine National Liberation Movement, Fatah. It doesn’t really matter because the situation and the people are very different today.

Patel is reported as saying that “the current listing of Hamas [with only its military wing proscribed] creates an artificial distinction between various parts of the organisation – it is right that the listing is updated to reflect this. This is an important step, especially for the Jewish community. If we tolerate extremism, it will erode the rock of security.” But the rock of security is eroded everyday by the real terrorists in the region, apartheid Israel. Israel is the reason for the unrest, slaughter, land theft and vicious oppression of the last 73 years. And Patel is a rabid supporter – some might say an agent – of that racist entity.

We haven’t forgotten that Patel, when international development decretary, had over a dozen meetings with Israeli politicians (including the then prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his security minister) during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss, Theresa May, and without government officials present. This was not only a two-finger salute to the ministerial Code of Conduct but a gross breach of security.

Furthermore she visited the Golan. Everyone and his dog knows — except Patel, apparently — that the Golan Heights is Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis who have illegally occupied it ever since. Touring it with the thieving occupation army was a monumental diplomatic blunder. According to Wikipedia, Patel afterwards recommended that British taxpayers money be diverted to field hospitals run by the Israeli army in the Golan Heights – like we don’t need the money here, with 300,000 homeless and sleeping rough.

Patel’s meetings are said to have been arranged by Lord Polak who accompanied her. This individual was an official of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s, joined the Conservative Friends of Israel in 1989, and served as its director for 26 years until appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service and made a life peer. It’s hard to see what political service Polak performed for anyone except the Israeli regime.

Patel was forced to resign but was quickly rehabilitated by Zionist Boris Johnson. In a debate on the Balfour Declaration, Johnson said of Israel: “It is a pluralist society, a society that protects the rights of those who live within it. It is a democracy. It is, in my view, a country to be saluted and celebrated.” Completely deluded.

And he said of Hamas: “If they want to enter the democratic process, then it’s very clear what they have to do. They have to renounce terror, they have to recognise the State of Israel, and they’ve got to stop spewing out anti-Semitic propaganda.”

What “democratic process” would that be? Hamas won the Palestinian elections fair and square in 2006, beating the quisling Fatah faction. The result didn’t suit the US, UK and Israel who ever since have colluded in sanctioning, collectively punishing and making life as miserable as possible for the people of Gaza, and cutting them off from the outside world. The US and UK have even aided Israel in its murderous assaults on those unarmed civilians imprisoned within the tiny enclave of the Gaza Strip. How sick is that, Ms Patel?

When it comes to calling other people terrorists, the joke is that the US, Israel and even the UK fall right into the definition. It fits them like a glove, and they can’t see it. As the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has observed, the US State Department when branding terrorists, only considers violent acts by non-state actors. Where the department does mention “state sponsors of terrorism” it means only nations that sponsor non-state actors. It doesn’t recognise the fact that states commit direct acts of terrorism themselves and some non-state actors (like Hamas and Hezbollah) rightly react.

And with America, it’s always the other guys who are terrorists. “For over a decade, Gaza has been ruled by Hamas, a terror organization, responsible for the murder and maiming of thousands of Israelis,” says Trump’s land-grab plan. “Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza nearly 15 years ago was meant to advance peace. Instead Hamas, an internationally recognised terrorist group, gained control over the territory, and increased attacks on Israel, including the launching of thousands of rockets… As a result of Hamas’s terror and misrule, the people of Gaza suffer from massive unemployment, widespread poverty, drastic shortages of electricity and potable water, and other problems that threaten to precipitate a wholesale humanitarian crisis.

This is bullshit. Israel withdrew its troops but continued to occupy Gaza’s airspace, airwaves and coastal waters. It controls all entry points, has imposed a cruel blockade for nearly 15 years and regularly “mows the lawn”, the racist state’s tasteless euphemism for its war of attrition against the Palestinians. 

The Trump plan claims the governance structure in Gaza is run by terrorists who provoke confrontations, therefore Israel will only implement its obligations under the [Oslo] Peace Agreements if the Palestinian Authority or some other body acceptable to Israel is in full control of Gaza and Gaza is fully demilitarised.

It threatens that Hamas, if it is to play a role in a Palestinian government, must adopt the Quartet principles, which include “unambiguously and explicitly recognising the State of Israel, committing to non-violence, and accepting previous agreements and obligations between the parties, including the disarming of all terrorist groups”. No such obligations are placed on Israel; there’s no symmetry whatsoever. At every opportunity Hamas and Hezbollah, legitimate resisters to Israeli aggression, are demonised.

It’s a bit rich for any ally of Israel to call Hamas terrorists. It would be very difficult objectively to classify Hamas as a terror government given the context of decades of brutal military occupation, economic suffocation, ethnic cleansing and denial of human rights at the hands of a lawless intruder. And never mind the fact that Hamas was voted into power in full and fair elections and still probably enjoys more popular support than rival Fatah which illegitimately controls the Palestinian Authority.

What does Patel really know about Hamas and Gaza? Has she been there and talked with them? No. The UK government says it has no direct links and only communicates with Hamas through intermediaries. Yet Hamas, which democratically speaking probably represents at least as many Palestinians as Fatah, obviously has to be part of any genuine peace effort and must be included. It is likely it would win again in any Palestinian election. So why outlaw it? Well, to prolong the agony and buy more time for Israel to complete its Zionist ambition to annex all of the Holy Land. Otherwise the UK would long ago have joined the nearly 140 United Nations member countries that have already recognised a Palestinian state.

What of Hamas?

After its surprise election victory Hamas could – and should – have immediately re-invented itself and seized the media initiative. But it left it too late and now has a mountain to climb. It took it far too long to rewrite its much-criticised charter and it consequently failed to win friends or influence enough people here in the West.

Former British diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock has argued that Hamas did not adopt that charter as part of its political programme after winning in 2006 and has become more secular with Khaled Meshaal saying the charter was no longer relevant. The new 2017 charter accepted the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before 1967, which is the internationally agreed position, but rejects recognition of Israel, regarding it as the “Zionist enemy”. And why not? Israel still refuses to accept a Palestinian state. The new document also states that Hamas’s struggle is against “occupying Zionist aggressors”, not the Jewish people.

With truth on their side, Palestine’s politicians nevertheless carelessly allow the Israeli regime, with its brazen propaganda and monstrous lies, to run media rings round them. It is largely thanks to dedicated activists, civil society campaign groups and online privateers that people in the West have become better informed about the evil occupation that defiles the Holy Land – and no thanks whatsoever to the leadership in Palestine.

“Act and intervene, or nothing will change”

A most remarkable priest, Manuel Musallam, used to run the Catholic community in Gaza. I was privileged to meet him in 2007 when he hosted a visit by a small group I was with. The Gaza Strip had been under tight blockade for 18 months and the situation was strained.

In the church’s school assembly hall I was surprised to see so many Muslim students. On one wall hung a huge portrait of the Pope and on the adjacent wall an equally large portrait of Yasser Arafat.

Fr Manuel whisked us off to see Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and some of his colleagues, who received us with utmost courtesy and friendship and gave straight answers to straight questions. Haniyeh and Fr Manuel declared their unity to the TV cameras, emphasising that they were Palestinians first and Muslim or Christian second in the struggle against the common enemy. Haniyeh has since become chief of Hamas’s Political Bureau.

Hamas’s health minister afterwards emailed me a list of desperately needed medical provisions and hospital equipment spares which I forwarded to the UK government. It was ignored.

The following year – and who can forget? – the Israelis launched their horrendous three-week blitzkrieg called Operation Cast Lead at Christmas-time and New Year 2008/09. At the height of the killing spree, Fr Manuel sent this message from the smoking ruins to anyone who would listen:

Our people in Gaza… cry, but no one wipes their tears. There is no water, no electricity, no food, only terror and blockade… Our children are living in a state of trauma and fear. They are sick from it and for other reasons such as malnutrition, poverty and the cold… The hospitals did not have basic first aid before the war and now thousands of wounded and sick are pouring in and they are performing operations in the corridors. The situation is frightening and sad.

He added: “May Christ’s compassion revive our love for God even though it is currently in ‘intensive care’.”

In the run-up to Christmas 2010 he was one of a trio of churchmen from the Holy Land touring Ireland to raise awareness of the plight of the dwindling Christian community under the illegal Israeli military occupation. The others were Archbishop Theodosius Hanna (Greek Orthodox Church) and Constantine Dabbagh (Executive Director of the Middle East Council of Churches) and they showed they were more than a match for Western politicians who fancied they knew all about the Middle East.

“We need only one thing, to be protected by the world against the crimes of Israel”, was their central message. And they made this stark plea: “Act and intervene, or nothing will change.”

“Palestinians say peace is possible if justice is possible”

Fr Manuel told Irish government ministers and their foreign affairs committee:

I was in Gaza during the war [Operation Cast Lead] and suffered with my people for 22 days. I saw with my own eyes a phosphoric bomb in the school yard. I saw people injured by these phosphoric bombs, although these bombs are forbidden. These crimes against us were ignored by all the people of the world…

What happened in Gaza was not a war. A war is a clash between soldiers, aircraft and weapons. We were victims, just victims. They destroyed Gaza… We are not terrorists. We have not occupied Israel.

We do not want to die to liberate Palestine. We want to live to build Palestine… We are asking the world to give the Palestinian people their rights. The question is whether peace is possible. Despite all the difficulties, the crimes and the war, we as Palestinians say peace is possible if justice is possible.

All we ask of Israel is to respect us and not treat us like animals… We are suffering a war that we have endured for more than 60 years.

He told his listeners how he had seen the Israeli army target the Christian school in Gaza. 

Five Hamas ministers visited the school after it was attacked and promised they would repair the damage… Hamas paid more than 122,000 US dollars to repair all the damage caused. Afterwards I met the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh. When he embraced me he said this, and we believed it: “Go to your family, but be assured that Hamas will employ weapons against Muslims to protect Christians in Gaza.” This is the reality. Christians in Palestine are not suffering persecution, because we are not considered to be a religious community but rather the people of Palestine. We have the same rights and the same obligations.

Fr Manuel ended by describing how things really are:

We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero. We have signed agreements here and there at various times and then when there is a change in the government of Israel we have to start again from the beginning. We ask for our life and to be given back our Jerusalem, to be given our state and for enough water to drink.

We want to be given more opportunity to reach Jerusalem. I have not seen Jerusalem since 1990…. We want to see an end to this occupation, and please do not ask us to protect those who are occupying our territory.

Anyone who dribbles on about anti-Semitism is either deluded or completely misses the point. This is a struggle of decent people for their freedom against the evil ambition of Zionism and the crimes of the Israelis against humanity.

I’d like to put Fr Manuel face to face with Priti Patel. I predict that he would “wipe the floor” with Patel.

What is Hamas’s response to being proscribed? This will “not deter us from continuing to defend our people and their rights by all legitimate means through comprehensive resistance,” said Haniyeh. And in a separate statement, Hamas said “resisting occupation by all available means, including armed resistance, is a right granted to people under occupation as stated by the international law.”

The right to armed resistance needs to be underlined. Patel should remember that as recently as May Israel killed at least 260 Palestinians, including 66 children, through its incessant bombardment of the Gaza Strip for 11 consecutive days.