It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, May 08, 2025
The Non-explosive Iranian Bomb
by Dan Lieberman / May 5th, 2025
The non-existent Iranian bomb has lesser importance to the existing bombs that threaten the world. United States (US) demands that Iran promise to halt pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile developments distract from the real intent of US actions — deter other nations from establishing more friendly relations with Iran and prevent them from gaining a correct perspective on the causes of the Middle East crises.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) created a potential for extensive political, economic, and social engagements of the international community with Iran. The investments would lead to attachments, friendships, and alliances and initiate a revitalized, prosperous, and stronger Iran. A new perspective of Iran could yield a revised perspective of a violent, unstable, and disturbed Middle East. Israel and Saudi Arabia would finally receive attention as participants in bringing chaos to the Arab region. Economies committed to Iran’s progress and allied with its interests could bring pressure on Israel and Saudi Arabia to change their destructive behaviors.
Because arguments with Iran could have been approached in a less provocative and insinuating manner, the previous demands were meant to provoke and insinuate. Assuredly, the US wants Iran to eschew nuclear and ballistic weapons, but the provocative approach indicated other purposes — alienate Iran, destroy its military capability, and bring Tehran to collapse and submission. For what reasons? Accomplishing the far-reaching goals will not affect the average American, lessen US defense needs, or diminish the continuous battering of the helpless faces of the Middle East. The strategy mostly pleased Israel and Saudi Arabia, who engineered it, share major responsibility for the Middle East turmoil, and consistently try to use mighty America to subdue the principal antagonist to their malicious activities. During the 2016 presidential campaign, contender Donald Trump said, “Many nations, including allies, ripped off the US.” President Donald Trump has verified that statement.
Noting the history of US promises to leaders of other nations – give up your aggressive attitudes and you will benefit – the US promises make the Ayatollahs skeptical. The US reneged on the JCPOA, sent Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to the World Court and eventual death (although his personal compromises were the key to the Dayton Accords that ended the Yugoslavian conflict), directly assisted NATO in the overthrow of subdued Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, pulverized Iraq after sanctions could not drive that nation to total ruin, rejected the Iranian pledge of $560 million worth of assistance to Afghanistan at the Tokyo donors’ conference in January 2002, and, according to the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Dobbins, disregarded Iran’s “decisive role in persuading the Northern Alliance delegation to compromise its demands of wanting 60 percent of the portfolios in an interim government.” Tehran has always sensed it is in a no-win situation. Regardless of its decisions and directions, the U.S. intends to pulverize the centuries old Persian lands.
If the US honestly wants to have Iran promise never to pursue nuclear and ballistic missile weapons, it will approach the issues with a simple question, “What will it take for you (Iran) never to pursue these weapons?” Assuredly, the response will include provisions for the US to withdraw support from a despotic Saudi Kingdom in its oppression of minorities and opposition and propose that the US eliminate financial, military and cooperative support to Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands, oppressive conditions imposed on Palestinians, daily killings of Palestinian people, and expansionist plans. The correct question soliciting a formative response and leading to decisive US actions resolves two situations and benefits the US — fear of Iran developing weapons of mass destruction is relieved and the Middle East is pointed in a direction that achieves justice, peace, and stability for its peoples.
Despite the August 2018 report from Trump’s U.S. Department of State’s Iran Action group, which “chronicle Iran’s destructive activities,” and consists of everything from most minor to most major, from unsubstantiated to retaliatory, from the present time to before the discovery of dirt, Iranians will not rebel in sufficient numbers against their own repressive state until they note the end of hypocritical support by western powers of other repressive states. Halting international terrorism, ameliorating the Middle East violence, and preventing any nation from establishing hegemony in the Arab world starts with Trump confronting Israel and Saudi Arabia, two nations whose records of injustice, aggression, oppression, and violation of human rights exceed that of the oppressive Iran regime.
Otherwise, it will occur on a Sunday morning; always occurs in the early hours on the day of rest. It will come with a roar greater than the sum of all shrieks and screams ever uttered by humankind, rip across fields and cities, and burn through the flesh of a part of the world’s population.
Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.
The Explosive Israeli Bomb
The nuclear deterrent that is not designed to deter
by Dan Lieberman / May 8th, 2025
When the United States sent the B-29 Super fortress bomber, Enola Gay, to drop “Little Boy” on an unwary Hiroshima and usher in the nuclear age, its administration neglected to plan for a major concern; how to prevent nuclear proliferation. Granted, America could not deter the Soviet Union and China from developing nuclear capabilities and did not want British and French allies from feeling deprived. The word “deterrent” guided who could develop an arsenal of mass destruction. Nuclear weapon balance would deter aggression between nuclear equipped nations.
The nuclear powered nations, with the United States in the lead, had the power to prevent other nations from atomic bomb making and force them into being content with conventional armaments. Why did they neglect to perform the dutiful task? Was it because Israel started nuclear weapons developments in 1963 and none of its antagonists were thinking nuclear? No rationale existed for Israel to have nuclear balance or a “deterrent.” Its nuclear pursuits meant obtaining nuclear unbalance and demonstrating, if it became necessary, doomsday capability. By allowing Israel to have the Samson option and develop atomic weapons, the U.S. and friends stimulated an arms race; Middle East nations sought means to neutralize the Israel bomb. Saddam Hussein expressed this dilemma in a speech at al-Bakr University, 3 June 1978.
When the Arabs start the deployment, Israel is going to say, ‘We will hit you with the atomic bomb.’ So should the Arabs stop or not? If they do not have the atom, they will stop. For that reason they should have the atom. If we were to have the atom, we would make the conventional armies fight without using the atom. If the international conditions were not prepared and they said, “We will hit you with the atom,” we would say, “We will hit you with the atom too. The Arab atom will finish you off, but the Israeli atom will not end the Arabs.”
Franco-Israeli nuclear cooperation is described in detail in the book ‘Les Deux Bombes’ (1982) by French journalist Pierre Pean, who gained access to the official French files on Dimona. The book revealed that the Dimona’s cooling circuits were built two to three times larger than necessary for the 26-megawatt reactor Dimona [supplied by France] was supposed to be – proof that it had always been intended to make bomb quantities of plutonium. The book also revealed that French technicians had built a plutonium extraction plant at the same site. According to Pean, French nuclear assistance enabled Israel to produce enough plutonium for one bomb even before the 1967 Six Day War. France also gave Israel nuclear weapon design information.”
Great Britain paved the road for Israel to reach the bomb. When he was UK prime minister, Harold Wilson supplied Israel with plutonium.
In Harold Macmillan’s time the UK supplied uranium 235 and the heavy water which allowed Israel to start up its nuclear weapons production plant at Dimona – heavy water which British intelligence estimated would allow Israel to make ‘six nuclear weapons a year.’
After the United States discovered the Dimona reactor in 1960, U.S. nuclear specialists inspected Dimona every year from 1965 through 1969, looking for signs of nuclear weapon production. It is not clear what they found, but in 1968 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported to President Lyndon Johnson its conclusion that Israel had already made an atomic bomb. In 1969, Israel limited inspection visits by U.S. scientists to such an extent that the Americans complained in writing. Without explanation, the Nixon administration ended the visits the following year.
By tacitly agreeing to Israel’s nuclear weapon developments, the western powers allowed India to casually develop its nuclear arsenal. Belatedly and ineffectively, the U.S. terminated economic and military aid to Pakistan in Oct. 1992 and tried to discourage a frightened Pakistan in its attempt to achieve a “balance of terror.” Muslim nations cannot have deterrents. The bluster did not work. Not containing the atomic arsenals of the two arch foes on the India continent is one of the major foreign policy and military policy blunders of the post-war era. Every few years, both nations engage in confrontations, prepared for a war that could unleash nuclear catastrophes.
The consequence of not facing down to India and Pakistan propagated the nuclear arms race. Could there eventually be a nuclear weapon in the military depots of extremists? Pakistan has many atomic bombs, which Pakistan’s present government won’t use, but it is possible that anarchy in Pakistan can enable bombs to slip to radical groups that have no compunction in exploiting the deadly weapon. The laxity is emphasized by the lack of control on previous actions by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s (in)famous nuclear physicist.
In 2004, Dr. Khan indicated he had provided Iran, Libya, and North Korea with designs and centrifuge technology to aid in nuclear weapons programs. Where was the CIA when Khan roamed the world? Pondering about Iran, no doubt, and developing policies that have driven Iran to pursue nuclear developments.
Blind to the effects on Iran’s posture, the U.S. staged its military in adjacent nations to Iran, constantly harangued Iran about its human rights record and its despotic government, and accused Iran of dubious terrorist activities. None of these activities were adequately described and the charges did not consider that Iranians are mysteriously getting assassinated, their facilities are being blown up, their computers are attacked by the Stuxnet virus, and CIA spies are being uncovered and arrested by them. Threatened, attacked, blindsided, and expecting destruction by Israel’s vassal, is it strange that being falsely accused of terrorist activists while being terrorized might force the Islamic Republic to pursue the nuclear deterrent. Same with North Korea.
Considering U.S. intensive hostility towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), coupled with its extensive military presence in Japan and South Korea, shouldn’t the Pyongyang leaders be apprehensive? Their apprehension inspired them to welcome previous treaties. In October 1994, President Clinton negotiated the healthy U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework:
North Korea agreed to freeze its existing plutonium enrichment program and be monitored by the IAEA;
Both sides agreed to replace by 2003 North Korea’s reactors with light water reactors, financed and supplied by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO);
The United States agreed to provide heavy fuel oil to the DPRK for energy purposes until atomic energy was available;
The two sides agreed to move toward full normalization of political and economic relations;
Both sides agreed to work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula; and;
Both sides agreed to work together to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.
What happened to this anxiety relieving treaty? The charges, countercharges, truths, and distortions are difficult to unravel. Not debatable is that the George W. Bush administration signaled North Korea with unfriendly intentions. Despite being the most significant milestone in the treaty, the first reactor, promised for delivery by 2003, was pushed up until 2008 at the earliest. A leaked version of the Bush administration’s January 2002 classified Nuclear Posture Review mentioned North Korea as a country against which the United States should be prepared to use nuclear weapons.
After starts and stops, self-destruction of nuclear facilities and reconstruction of the same facilities, the DPRK proceeded to definitely develop nuclear weapons. Their arguments for this posture had validity. The United States did not meet its most important commitment, President George W. Bush designated North Korea as part of an “axis of evil,” the State Department continually equated not having a peace treaty with Pyongyang violations of human rights, and Washington carelessly inferred that, if hostilities developed, North Korea could expect a nuclear attack. What did the Bush administration expect of the ‘hermit state’ leaders? The U.S. State Department evidently imagined, by being conciliatory, Kim Jong Un would take advantage and secretly develop an atomic bomb. However, by not being conciliatory, it assured the DPRK would be provoked into securing a nuclear weapon.
Except for the United States’ offensive attack against Japan, the nuclear club nations that signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty developed the weapons as deterrents. The Soviet Union needed to oppose USA power. Great Britain and France requisitioned a nuclear arsenal to defend against the Soviet Union. China had the greatest fear ─ it was surrounded by a world of enemies.
Of those who have not signed the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons — India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel — all, except Israel had deterrent as an immediate reason. India feared China, Pakistan feared India, and North Korea feared the United States. When Israel started nuclear weapons developments in 1963, none of its antagonists, gushing in oil, mentioned the word ‘nuclear.’
Shouldn’t the U.S. State Department consider in its policies the argument that those most likely to use the bomb are more important than those who pursue the bomb? Great Britain has the bomb, but there is no possibility it will use the weapon. There is little probability that even if about to be defeated, the DPRK will use the bomb ─ against whom, their own brethren? Only Pakistan radical elements and Israel can effectively use the bomb in an offensive manner; the former because they have suicidal elements, and the latter because it does not face nuclear retaliation.
Even if an engaged nation had a nuclear weapon, and presently none of Israel’s foes have a mass destruction device, Israel’s small size and closeness to Arab peoples in adjacent nations give it a protection against a nuclear strike. The possibility of inflicting severe damage to innocent Arab populations in the neighboring countries hinders a retaliatory action to Israel’s aggression. Israel’s principal reason to have the bomb is for the threat, real or imagined, it poses to any nation that counters its policies. The Islamic Republic cannot use nuclear weapons for an offensive purpose. Any attempt to do that and Iran’s enemies will extinguish the Islamic Republic in a flash of the radioactive light. Its bomb can only neutralize other bombs
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel faced possible defeat, a fear existed that unless the United States assisted Israel with more armaments, Israel might use nuclear weapons against its adversaries. A large U.S. airlift of military aid finalized the battle in favor of Israel. A French official explained the situation.
In 1986, Francis Perrin, high commissioner of the French atomic energy agency from 1951 to 1970, was quoted in the press as saying that France and Israel had worked closely together for two years in the late 1950s to design an atom bomb. Perrin said that the United States had agreed that the French scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project could apply their knowledge at home provided they kept it secret. But then, Perrin said, ‘We considered we could give the secrets to Israel provided they kept it a secret themselves.’ He added: ‘We thought the Israeli bomb was aimed against the Americans, not to launch it against America but to say ‘if you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us, otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.
After the smoke screen that guides the talks with Iran clears, the brightened atmosphere might reveal that the initial development of the Israeli bomb was to deter the U.S. from interfering with Israel’s expansion plans, as the U.S. did in the 1956 Suez War.
How could the U.S. behave so recklessly, not realizing it was responsible for the atomic arms race and for allowing and even moving others to obtain the bomb? Why does it not consider in its policies the argument that those most likely to use the bomb are more important than those who desire the bomb? Answers to both these questions expose an almost purposeful U.S. policy to drive others to obtain the “doomsday explosive.” A simple proposition can deaden that determination, and not only for Iran; the world’s major powers can give any nation that entertains a “first strike” a rethink ─ do it and get demolished.
Which leads to the a way to halt nuclear proliferation in the Middle East ─ either dismantle all existing bombs or allow them to be neutralized. Better yet ─ signal that a first nuclear strike by any nation will be met by a severe strike on that nation with conventional weapons from the great powers of the United Nations Security Council. Give them an offer they can’t refuse. Not far-fetched!
Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.
Why I Wrote an Expert Report against the UK Classing Hamas as a Terror Group
by Jonathan Cook / May 3rd, 2025
Predictably, the British establishment is vilifying lawyers trying to end the proscription of Hamas’ political as well as armed wing. The lawyers have good arguments. So why is no one listening?
This is the first time I have had to begin an opinion column with both a journalistic disclosure and a legal disclaimer. But hey ho, these are dystopian times we live in.
The disclosure: I was one of 20 people who contributed expert reports for a recent legal submission to the British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, calling on her to end the proscription of Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
You can read my submission – on the significant damage done to journalism by Hamas’ proscription – here.
If, as widely expected, Cooper does not approve the application, prepared by the London-based Riverway Law firm on behalf of Hamas, within the 90-day time limit, her decision will be referred to an appeal tribunal for judicial review.
The disclaimer: Nothing that follows is intended in any way to encourage you to take a more favourable view of Hamas. It is not intended in any way to encourage you to support Hamas. It does not endorse opinions or beliefs that are supportive of Hamas, as set out in the submissions calling for the de-proscription of Hamas.
The danger is this: under Section 12 of Britain’s draconian Terrorism Act of 2000, if anything I write, however inadvertently, encourages you to think more favourably of a proscribed organisation like Hamas, I face up to 14 years in jail.
The purpose of this article is to show how the law and the establishment operate together to stifle legitimate criticism of the Israeli occupation.
The law is so loosely worded that the British government, supported by a counter-terrorism police seemingly only too eager to please, can potentially arrest anyone praising the work of Gaza’s public hospitals in saving lives because Hamas is in charge of the enclave’s government, or prosecute anyone, including media outlets, giving a platform to Hamas politicians trying to advance a ceasefire.
If all this sounds crazy, given both that stating facts should not be illegal and that I cannot possibly know how anyone might receive and feel about any information regarding Hamas, then you are starting to understand why the application to the home secretary is so urgent and important.
Secret meetings
The UK may have declared Hamas’ armed wing a terrorist organisation a quarter of a century ago, but its political and administrative wings were added to the proscribed list much more recently – in 2021.
Which is why Cooper, the current home secretary, was misleading in the way she dismissively responded to the de-proscription application submitted to her office. She told LBC: “Hamas has long been a terrorist organisation. We maintain our view about the barbaric nature of this organisation.”
It was Priti Patel who, as home secretary, added Hamas in its entirety, including its political and administrative wings, to the proscription list shortly after she was rehabilitated and readmitted to Boris Johnson’s government in 2019.
Two years earlier, she had been forced to resign from her post as international development secretary in disgrace.
Why? Because she was found to have held 12 secret meetings with senior Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without disclosing those meetings to her colleagues and while she was supposedly on a family holiday.
It later emerged she had also secretly met other Israeli officials in New York and Westminster.
Patel’s political career, to put it politely, has been distinguished by an evident attentiveness to Israeli concerns.
Undoubtedly her decision to proscribe Hamas’ political and administrative wings, treating them as identical to the armed section of the organisation, was high on Israel’s wish list.
It instantly degraded Britain’s political discourse so that it became all but impossible to discuss Hamas’ rule in Gaza or Israel’s blockade of the enclave in a balanced or realistic way. It resulted in a simplistic black-and-white picture of life in the enclave in which everything Hamas was bad – and therefore, by contrast, everything Israeli was good.
That would spectacularly serve Israeli interests two years later, when, following the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, Israel fed the western media entirely fabricated stories of Hamas “beheading babies” and carrying out “mass rapes”.
For months afterwards, as Israel set about murdering Palestinians in Gaza en masse and levelling their homes, the only question media interviewers directed at anyone criticising Israel’s actions was this: “Do you condemn Hamas?”
Even the ever-swelling death toll figures recorded by Gaza’s health ministry – proven to be so reliable in previous Israeli attacks that international bodies and the Israeli military itself relied on them – were suddenly treated as suspect and inflated. Independent research continues to suggest otherwise.
Western media outlets appended “Hamas-run” to the health ministry, and its casualty figures – almost certainly a massive undercount given Israel’s systematic destruction of the health sector – were now reported only as a “claim”.
In turn, these deceptions were implicitly used to justify Israel’s own, far greater atrocities in killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children, destroying the enclave’s hospitals and supporting infrastructure, while at the same time starving the entire population.
Eighteen months on, “evil Hamas” is still the story, not Israel’s all-too-obvious genocide.
Bullied into silence
Concerns about Hamas being proscribed in its entirety – not just its armed wing – are far from hypothetical, given the expansive wording of the UK’s Terrorism Act since 2019, when it was amended.
In particular, a revision to Section 12 means that anyone who “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation”, and one that might “encourage support” for that organisation, is liable to arrest by terrorism police, prosecution, and up to 14 years in jail.
For expressing an opinion.
The wording is so vague that, for example, simply criticising Israel for committing greater and more numerous atrocities than Hamas could theoretically have the counter-terrorism police banging on your door.
To avoid prosecution, Riverway Law’s website dedicated to its application to the home secretary carries a legal disclaimer: “By entering this website you acknowledge that none of the contents can be understood as supporting, or expressing support for, proscribed terrorist organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000.”
Several independent British journalists and commentators – those whose careers are not dictated, and protected, by billionaires or the UK state broadcaster – have had their homes raided at dawn by counter-terrorism police or been arrested at the border as they return home.
One political commentator, Tony Greenstein – who also happens to be Jewish and a trained lawyer – is currently being prosecuted under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act. Others are under prolonged investigation. They have the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads like a sword.
The rest of us are meant to take note, feeling the chilling effect. Do we want the police breaking down the door of our homes at dawn? Do we want to be arrested on return from holiday, our partners and children looking on in horror?
The National Union of Journalists has called the police actions against journalists “abuse and mis-use of counter-terror legislation” and warned that they risk “threatening the safety of journalists”, as well as their sources.
Understandably, you may be barely aware of these repressive police tactics, which have been accelerating since Keir Starmer came to power. He, let us recall, personally approved, as opposition leader, Israel’s crime against humanity of blocking food, water and power to Gaza.
The BBC and the rest of the media have failed to meaningfully report these incidents – which are characteristic elsewhere of police states.
Is that because these media outlets are themselves cowed into submission by the Terrorism Act?
Or is it because they are simply mouthpieces of the same British establishment that made it illegal to express support for objectives which are the same as those sought by Hamas’ political, as opposed to military, objectives?
Let us remember – and it’s easy to forget, given how rarely such things are mentioned by the British media – that the same UK state that proscribed Hamas continues to arm Israel directly, helps ship weapons from other countries to Israel, supplies Israel with intelligence from British spy planes over Gaza, and provides Israel with diplomatic cover – all while Israel carries out what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calls a “plausible genocide”, and while its sister International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks the arrest of Netanyahu for crimes against humanity.
The British government is not a neutral party in the levelling of Gaza, the decimation of its people by bombs, the ethnic cleansing of swaths of the enclave, or the starvation of the population. It is actively assisting Israel in its genocidal campaign.
The UK establishment is also, through its proscription of Hamas and the wording of the Terrorism Act, bullying journalists, academics, politicians, lawyers – in fact, anyone – into silence about the context of its complicity, into an unwillingness to scrutinise its rationalisations for collusion in genocide.
‘No civilians’
There are two main objectives behind Riverway Law’s submission to the home secretary against Hamas’ proscription as a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The first concerns the proscription of the entire organisation by the British government. This is the part of the legal submission that has attracted most attention – and which has been used to vilify the lawyers involved
As barrister Franck Magennis has explained, Riverway’s hands were tied because Patel – now the shadow foreign secretary – added Hamas to the list as a single entity in 2021, making no distinction between its different wings. That meant the lawyers had no choice but to petition for the entire group to be deproscribed.
The government set the terms of the legal debate, not Hamas or its legal representatives.
Hamas’ lawyers accept that its military wing meets the definition of a terrorist organisation under the terms of the UK’s Terrorism Act. They argue this law casts the net so wide that any organisation using violence to achieve political ends is covered, including the Israeli, Ukrainian and British militaries.
The establishment media have tried to smear Riverway and its barristers as Hamas “stooges” and supporters of terrorism – amply illustrating why the case is so necessary.
An openly hostile interviewer for LBC appeared to think he had caught out Magennis in some kind of ethical or professional lapse because he chose to represent Hamas without payment – as he must do under UK law because Hamas is a proscribed organisation.
The implication was that Magennis was so enthusiastically supportive of terrorism that he was willing to take on time-consuming and career-damaging work for free – rather than that he is doing so because there are vitally important legal and ethical principles at stake.
Not least, the proscription of Hamas’ political wing, including its governmental and administrative institutions, treats them as extensions of the armed struggle.
It breathes life into Israel’s patently ridiculous claims that all of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are really “Hamas command and control centres”, that Gaza’s doctors can be killed or arrested and taken to torture camps because they are “Hamas operatives” in disguise, and that Gaza’s paramedics can be executed because their rescue missions supposedly aid Hamas.
And worse, ultimately proscription supports Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements that there are “no civilians in Gaza”, a place where half the population are children.
Bargaining chips
The proscription of Hamas in its entirety ignores the fact that the group has political goals – ones Gaza’s population voted for 19 years ago to liberate themselves from decades of Israel’s brutal and illegal military occupation. Those goals are distinct from Hamas, yet expressing support for the objectives gives rise to the risk of being investigated by the police and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Gaza’s people – the less than half who were old enough to vote two decades ago – were driven down the path of supporting armed resistance in the pursuit of national liberation for an all-too-obvious reason. Because Israel had refused to make any concessions to Hamas’ political rivals, headed by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.
Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has been using strictly diplomatic means – which Israel also opposes – to achieve statehood.
The proscription of Hamas sweeps out of view the fact that a people under occupation have a right enshrined in international law to use armed struggle against their military oppressors. It makes it perilously dangerous to show support for the armed struggle of Gaza’s Palestinians lest you are accused of breaching Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Proscription sanctions the failure by western politicians and media to distinguish between Hamas actions on 7 October 2023 that accord with international law, such as its attacks on Israeli military bases, and illegitimate actions targeting Israeli civilians.
It reverses reality, treating all those Israelis held in Gaza as hostages who have been kidnapped, even those who are soldiers, while approving of Israel’s kidnapping of Palestinians in Gaza, from medical staff to children.
The latter are supposedly “arrested”. They are referred to by the western media as “prisoners”, even though most have not been charged or put on trial, and the main purpose of their detention seems to be as bargaining chips in an exchange for Israelis captive in Gaza.
And finally, since 2021, Britain’s proscription of Hamas’ political wing has effectively meant the UK has given its backing both to Israel’s refusal to talk to Gaza’s government, and to Israel’s near two-decade-old siege of Gaza that turned it into little more than a concentration camp holding 2.3 million Palestinians, further radicalising the population.
British politicians should understand quite how self-defeating such an approach is. After all, it was only through talking to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the “terrorist” IRA group, that Britain was able to negotiate a peace deal, the Good Friday Agreement, in Northern Ireland in 1998.
Hamas stated in its revised 2017 charter that it is ready to make territorial concessions with Israel – based on the traditional two-state solution.
And it does so again in its application to the home secretary, calling the two-state solution the “national consensus” among Palestinians.
The submission notes that Israel has repeatedly assassinated Hamas leaders, including Ahmed Jabari and Ismail Haniyeh, when they were close to concluding ceasefire agreements, in what looks suspiciously like attempts by Israel to undermine more moderate voices within the organisation.
Through proscription, Britain has handed Israel a permanent licence to refuse to test Hamas’ willingness to compromise.
Attack on lawyers
Robert Jenrick, Britain’s shadow justice secretary, has called for Riverway Law and its barristers to be investigated and struck off for representing Hamas – apparently forgetting the foundational principle in law that everyone, even serial killers, have a right to legal representation if the law is not to become a hollow charade.
The Terrorism Act includes provision for an appeal by proscribed organisations against their inclusion on the list. How are they to go through the legal procedure to appeal their listing apart from through lawyers?
Disgracefully, Starmer’s officials have once again kept their silence as Hamas’ legal representatives in the UK have been turned into targets for establishment abuse. The government is as complicit in the assault at home on basic democratic rights, such as free speech and the rule of law, as it has been complicit abroad in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
How would the Starmer government have reacted had the two British barristers who defended Israel against South Africa’s case against genocide at the ICJ last year been publicly maligned for doing so? Would it have been okay to tar those lawyers with the crimes against humanity committed by their client?
Fahad Ansari, director of Riverway Law, has written to the government, urging it to speak up in defence of this team’s right to challenge Hamas’ proscription, and warning that Jenrick’s “comments are not only reckless and libellous but amount to incitement against our staff members”.
He has reminded the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, of the previous murder of lawyers for taking on cases that challenged the British establishment, including Pat Finucane, who was killed by Ulster loyalists in collusion with the British security services, after he won several human rights cases against the British government.
Hamas’ submission makes the case that Patel provided several false grounds to justify the proscription of Hamas in its entirety.
Hamas disputes Patel’s characterisation of it as a terrorist organisation. It notes that international law allows people illegally occupied and oppressed to resist through military means.
Hamas’ former political bureau chief Mousa Abu Marzouk notes in his witness statement on behalf of Hamas that Hamas’ operation on 7 October 2023 was intended only to strike military targets, and that atrocities carried out by its fighters that day against civilians had not been authorised by the leadership and are not condoned.
It is impossible to know whether that claim is true.
It is also incredibly hard to draw attention to factors which could be said to support Abu Marzouk’s argument without also being alleged to have invited support for Hamas or as expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of Hamas – which would risk being accused of a criminal offence under Section 12.
In addition to the false stories spread by Israel, such as that Hamas “beheaded babies” and carried out “mass rape”, it is known that other, presumably less disciplined, groups broke out of Gaza that day as well as Hamas. Apparently no effort has been made to determine which groups carried out which atrocities.
And then there is the fact that an unknown number of the atrocities blamed on Hamas were actually caused by Israel’s green-lighting of its Hannibal directive, which authorised the Israeli military to kill its own soldiers and citizens to prevent them being seized. That included firing missiles into kibbutz homes and on vehicles heading towards Gaza, leaving only charred remains of the occupants.
The proscription of Hamas makes it legally dangerous to draw attention to the sickening acts of the Israeli government.
Also worth noting is that Hamas makes clear in its submission that, unlike Israel, it is ready to have its actions that day investigated by international bodies and any of its fighters who committed atrocities put on trial.
“We remain, as always, prepared to cooperate with any international investigations and inquiries into the operation, even if ‘Israel’ refuses to do so,” Abu Marzouk writes.
He calls on “the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently come to occupied Palestine to look into the crimes and violations committed there, rather than merely observing the situation remotely or being subject to the Israeli restrictions.”
Public demonised
Abu Marzouk points out that Britain is not a dispassionate observer of Israel’s genocide unfolding in Gaza. As the colonial power in Palestine for much of the first half of the last century, it permitted European Jews to colonise the Palestinian people’s homeland, effectively leaving the latter stateless.
“Unsurprisingly,” Abu Marzouk writes, “the British state continues to side with the genocidal Zionist coloniser, while proscribing organisations like ours that strive to assert Palestinian dignity.”
Which alludes to the second main purpose of Hamas’ application.
The British state has a legal obligation to prevent Israel’s current crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza. And those in a position to shed light on Israel’s atrocities – and thereby add to the pressure on the British government and international bodies to fulfil their legal obligations – have a duty to do so too.
That means lawyers, journalists, human rights groups, academics and researchers should be as free as possible to contribute information and analyses that hold both Israel to account for its continuing crimes and the British state for any collusion in those crimes.
But as noted earlier, what Hamas’ proscription has done is precisely stifle expert discourse about what is happening in Gaza. Those who try to speak up, from independent journalists to lawyers, have found themselves vilified, bullied or threatened with prosecution by the British state.
Increasingly, this crackdown is being extended to the wider public.
Proscription has paved the way for the arrest and jailing of peace activist groups like Palestine Action trying to stop the UK-based arms manufacturer Elbit producing the quadcopters Israel is using to finish off civilians, including children, injured in air strikes on Gaza.
Proscription has paved the way for demonising mass public marches and student campus demonstrations against Israel’s genocide as pro-Hamas and “hate protests”.
Proscription has paved the way for the police to place ever-tighter restrictions on such demonstrations, to arrest the organisers, and to investigate prominent figures like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell who take part in them.
“Rather than allow freedom of speech, police have embarked on a campaign of political intimidation and persecution of journalists, academics, peace activists and students over their perceived support for Hamas,” the application argues.
But while those opposed to genocide find themselves maligned as supporters of terrorism, those actually committing crimes against humanity – whether Israeli leaders or British nationals taking part as soldiers in the genocide in Gaza – are still being welcomed in Britain with open arms.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, in London last month for a so-called “private meeting”. The British government apparently agreed to Saar’s visit, even though it must have known it would trigger requests from legal groups for his arrest for war crimes.
Meanwhile, a legal dossier handed to the Metropolitan Police last month against 10 Britons accused of committing war crimes in Gaza, such as killing civilians and aid workers, has made barely any ripples.
Where is the outrage meted out by the media and politicians for Britons who have chosen to travel to Gaza to fight with an army that has killed and maimed many tens of thousands of Palestinian children there?
There is more to say, but saying more risks arrest by the UK’s counter-terrorism police and jail time. Which is why ending Hamas’ proscription needs to happen as soon as possible.
And why the British establishment, from politicians to the media, are so determined to close ranks and foil the application.
