It’s been a rough old week for Hamas. The UK announced plans to proscribe the organisation, Justin Bieber ignored its call to cancel his 2022 concert in Tel Aviv, and even the recently friendly Labour party has vowed that it ‘does not and will not support BDS’. One minute, you’re going about your business, trying to drive the Jews into the sea, and the next you’re being treated like you’re the bad guy.
Priti Patel’s decision to add Hamas to the Home Office list of terrorist organisations corrects a 20-year-old error which saw the Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades — Hamas’s paramilitary wing — outlawed in 2001 but the rest of the organisation unaffected.
Sajid Javid closed a similar loophole with Hezbollah and Patel’s amendment underscores the absurdity involved in pretending an organisation with a terrorist wing isn’t a terrorist organisation. If parliament backs the plans, from 26 November it will be a criminal offence under the Terrorism
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