“It underlines America’s continuing support for the illegal occupation and provides further cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity, including the Judaisation of the Palestinian homeland and Islamic and Christian sanctities.” (Hamas)

By Stuart Littlewood

Last year Priti Patel, UK Home Secretary, outlawed Hamas in its entirety, branding it a terrorist organisation and threatening that “members of Hamas or those who invite support for the group could be jailed for up to 14 years”. Previously, Hamas’s militant wing (the Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades) was proscribed, not its political wing.

So the British government, which has been largely responsible for the devastating events in the Holy Land for the last 100 years and fancies itself as an expert on peace initiatives, now won’t speak with the party the Palestinians elected to represent them. Isn’t that taking our “Israel’s bitch” role a bit too far?

The instrument used to skewer Hamas is here. A casual glance shows that the cooked-up justification for Patel’s action could equally be applied to the Israeli regime and its methods. As everyone knows (except the Zio-freaks in Washington and Westminster), Israel’s behaviour meets and exceeds every definition and specification of terror with flying colours. But the apartheid regime, whose values our government repeatedly tells us we share, continues to enjoy impunity while Hamas is condemned for using violence.

But UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 reaffirms that it is legitimate for people in their struggle for independence and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and occupation to use “all available means, including armed struggle“. And the resolution says that denial of those inalienable rights and Israel’s repeated acts of aggression against the people of the region “constitute a serious threat to international peace and security”.

It would seem that Patel has trouble distinguishing between legitimate armed struggle and acts of terror.

The UN General Assembly also criticises the expansionist activities of Israel which prevent the Palestinians achieving independence. And it “strongly condemns” governments that fail to recognise the rights of peoples still under colonial domination and alien subjugation. That includes you, Westminster, so get your act together.

Perverse

When Hamas won Palestine’s legislative elections fair and square in 2006 the US, Israel and Britain ganged up to deny it the recognition and wherewithal to take over from its rival and sore loser, Fatah. Since then Hamas has increased its popularity and would probably wipe the floor with Fatah again if elections were held. But while Hamas is holed up in Gaza, Fatah clings to power illegitimately in the West Bank as does its president, Mahmoud Abbas, controlling the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation with no popular mandate for 16 years. Nevertheless, Abbas is still strutting the international stage, though not to much effect.

In which case is it not perverse for the British government, or any other government, to talk to Fatah and not Hamas, when Hamas is now, and very likely will be again, the democratic choice?

Hamas or Fatah: which one truly represents Palestine?

For a long time after 2006 Hamas seemed to have trouble adjusting to the reality of its unexpected election win and got itself a bad press for not rewriting its charter and deleting its inflammatory language. Zionist propagandists have had a field day at its expense, hampering Hamas’s efforts to establish diplomatic credibility.

Let me say that I have no connection with Hamas, I’m not a supporter and I don’t recommend anybody becoming one. But given that Biden’s administration is reportedly top-heavy with Zionist Jews the visit was bound to be yet another stab in the back for Palestinians from yet another puppet US president, and I wondered how Hamas and Fatah would each react. Of course, the great man would never dream of dropping in on Gaza and shooting the breeze with the guys there. But he did stop off in the West Bank to talk to quisling Abbas who heads up Fatah, while all the time looking forward to a love-in with Israel’s new prime minster, Yair Lapid.

So here was a simple test.

What did “good boys” Fatah have to say? Well, who knows? When I checked the websites of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine PLO and the Palestine embassy in London on 18 July, I saw nothing about Biden’s visit. So, they remain true to their long-term policy of being useless to the Palestinian cause.

And what did Patel’s “terrorists” say? When I checked Hamas’s website, sure enough I found a piece expressing its disappointment. It makes a number of powerful points which boil down to this:

● Biden’s visit underlines America’s continuing support for the illegal occupation and provides further cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity, including the Judaisation of the Palestinian homeland and Islamic and Christian holy places.

● The real purpose of his visit is to further integrate the Zionist intruder Israel into the Arab world and pretend the relationship with its neighbours is “normalised”. This only causes more instability and insecurity in a region still suffering from previous American interference and the never-ending occupation America finances.

● Hamas ask the US administration to recognise the inalienable rights of the Palestinians and end its support for Israel’s cruel occupation, which defies all international covenants, laws and a raft of Security Council resolutions.

● Hamas urges the Palestinian Authority not to trust America’s promises to protect and support Palestinians’ national rights. Instead, the PA [Palestinian Authority] goes with the people’s wish for continued resistance in defence of Palestinian lands, livelihoods and resources, rejecting fruitless negotiations and condemning the illegal settlements that are intended to scupper the Palestinian cause.

● Hamas calls on the peoples of their Arab and Islamic Ummah [community], and all free people of the world, to reject America’s self-serving policies which wreck the region’s stability, stifle its economic potential and are simply aimed at bolstering the Zionist enemy.

● The Palestinian people will continue to use whatever means are available to achieve liberation, self-determination and the return of those who were driven into exile.

This brings together important points frequently made by others, so isn’t unique to Hamas. But it’s a sign it is leaning towards pro-Palestine mainstream thought. Perhaps Patel has a view on all this, since her certainty about what constitutes real terrorism and who are its perpetrators is so rock-solid that she has legislated on it.

Meanwhile, I’d like to know what both sides think of Biden’s failure to reinstate the US consulate in Palestinian East Jerusalem as promised and his failure to halt Israel’s criminal settlement building. And, not least, his crass remark that the long-dead two-state solution is “the best way to ensure the future meaningful measure of freedom, prosperity and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians” but “not in the near term”.

How much longer must the world wait?