The HAMAS Case

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REPORT ON PALESTINE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ARAB WORLD

BY

DR USAAMA AL-AZAMI

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. INSTRUCTIONS

1. I have been instructed by Riverway Law to provide a report on matters within my expertise in support of the application to the British Home Secretary to deproscribe Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah (‘Hamas’).

2. This report examines the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization within the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict and international law. It critiques the Abraham Accords for sidelining Palestinian self-determination, emboldening Israel’s illegal behaviour, and normalizing occupation, while isolating Palestinians from meaningful diplomacy. The report highlights the complicity of regional Arab states in perpetuating Palestinian suffering and argues that Hamas’s proscription requires reevaluation in light of its grassroots popularity and pragmatic approach. Drawing on historical precedents like those of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), it advocates for policies prioritizing justice and dialogue, recognizing Hamas’s role in resisting illegal occupation, and its historical pragmatism.

2. QUALIFICATIONS

3. I give this report in my personal capacity.

4. I am a tenured assistant professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Prior to this, I was a departmental lecturer at the University of Oxford from 2019-2023. I completed my PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in 2018. I specialize in religio-political actors and discourses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

5. I am the author of a number of book chapters and articles on religion and politics in the MENA region with a special interest in Islamic political movements and intellectuals affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). I am the author of a monograph entitled Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (Oxford University Press, 2022). I have previously provided a submission to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee for its November 2016 Political Islam’, and the Muslim Brotherhood Review.

3. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

6. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rooted in the early 20th century, was set in motion by the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Nakba of 1948, which displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as part of a process scholars refer to as “settler-colonialism.”¹ This historical trauma informs Palestinian struggles for self-determination and provides the context for the emergence of Hamas during the 1987 intifada against Israel's occupation of territories seized in 1967—an occupation deemed illegal under international law. Resisting such occupation, whether violently or non-violently, is considered legitimate under international law when carried out in observance of IHL and the Geneva Conventions.²

7. The actions of Hamas must be understood within the broader framework of Israel's settler-colonial project, widely recognized in scholarship as analogous to other historical settler-colonial enterprises such as those in the United States, Canada, and Australia—projects often described as genocidal.³ Unlike earlier colonial ventures, Israel's settler-colonialism occurs in a modern context where such practices are deemed illegal under international law. Despite international condemnation, Israel has continued to pursue settler colonial practices—notably characterized by ethnic cleansing—with the support of powerful Western states, making its occupation a uniquely contentious issue in contemporary geopolitics.⁴

8. After the era of independence movements that saw the emergence of post-colonial states, the world largely came to recognize the illegitimacy of colonialism and the colonization of territory. Israel's long-term occupation of Palestinian lands has been particularly strongly opposed by not just the Palestinians but most of the world. Western support for Israel is viewed as deeply one-sided by the vast majority of the globe. The vast majority of the world's states recognize the state of Palestine and have done so for decades. As of 2024, more than three-quarters of the world's 193 UN-recognized states view Palestine as a state. Indeed, since 1947 the UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly supported resolutions recognizing Palestinian statehood and related rights. Full UN recognition is held back by the United States’ veto on the Security Council.

9. This is the context in which the Palestinian issue has become a bone of contention for the Global South in particular. Western states remain the only states, with several important exceptions in the West, that do not recognize the state of Palestine. The lack of recognition of a Palestinian state has been a significant limiting factor for legitimizing Palestinian rights and is at the heart of the so-called Palestinian issue. Hamas is one of several Palestinian actors concerned with upholding the plight of the Palestinians. Put differently, the raison d'être of Hamas is championing the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian issue may be defined for present purposes as: the cause of Palestinian self-determination in the face of the settler-colonial dispossession of Palestinians of their rights over many decades and their unjust treatment at the hands of their colonizers. This has occasionally resulted in violence perpetrated against their colonizing state, namely Israel.

10. The Palestinian issue may be viewed as concerned with the establishment of genuine equality between all occupants of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. According to the ICJ Advisory Opinion from 19 July 2024, the state of Israel has been engaged in apartheid and systematic oppression of the Palestinians under its control and authority as an occupying power.⁵ Its occupation of Palestinian lands is recognized as illegal under international law. Supporting this occupation and these apartheid practices are also illegal under international law. The Israeli state is also currently charged by the ICJ with being engaged in a plausible genocide. While this case will take many years to come to a formal conclusion, there are already many leading scholars of genocide, including a number of Israeli scholars, who believe that what has been taking place in Gaza for the past year constitutes the crime of genocide.⁶

4. GLOBAL POLITICS, GAZA, AND HAMAS

11. In this context, it is also important to highlight that Arab states have historically had a mixed reputation when it comes to supporting Palestinians concerning their rightful claims to freedom within their land and freedom from occupation. While the West has either not supported the Palestinians or actively supported the colonizing Israeli state, Arab states have historically expressed at least verbal support for Palestinian rights. This continues to this day. However, in recent years, the Palestinian issue, which was seen as viable as long as it was being supported by a significant number of states around the world, has started to be sidelined as a concern by increasing numbers of Arab states. The most dramatic change has taken place over the last six or so years.

12. Post-colonial Arab states were often weak institutionally and were not in a position to assert themselves in the face of strong Western support for Israel. Nonetheless, some Arab states had even gone to war against the Israeli state in the middle of the 20th century, in an effort to, as they saw it, liberate Palestine from colonization. By the 2000s, all of these military efforts were viewed as non-viable, and most Arab states were de facto, if not de jure, allies of the United States, which is the main backer of the state of Israel. Alongside this, the rise of illegal settlements as a major force in the occupied territories had rendered the possibility of ending occupation even more remote. Settlements had brought about de facto annexation of much of the occupied territories, with close to 800,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank at present.

13. With respect to Gaza, this small territory had been physically occupied by Israel until its unilateral withdrawal in 2005. However, as stated in the July 2024 ICJ ruling, the fact that Gaza's entry and exit points are controlled by Israel, that they control the airspace above it, and that they have control of everything that enters or exits Gaza, including basic necessities of human life, means that according to international law, Gaza has continued to be occupied despite Israel’s ostensible withdrawal nearly 20 years ago.

14. Gaza had elections in 2006, in which Hamas won the popular vote in what international observers recognized as a free and fair election. However, this decision on the part of the Palestinian populace resulted in sanctions from the West. This was widely perceived throughout the region and in the Global South as contradicting the West’s declared support for democracy. After the West placed sanctions on Gaza because they elected Hamas, Hamas then formed a unity government with all other Palestinian factions, but this too was rebuffed, and the sanctions were not lifted by the West. These sanctions led to a degradation of life in Gaza so severe that it started being referred to as an open-air prison and an open-air concentration camp, including by the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 2010.⁷

15. In 2018, the people of Gaza engaged in a movement known as the Great March of Return, in an attempt to bring attention to their plight of living under siege and illegal occupation by the Israelis to the rest of the world. During this peaceful uprising, Palestinians marched towards the separation wall with Israel. Hundreds of people were killed by Israeli snipers, and thousands more were injured, often shot in their ankles and knees. The world paid little heed to this peaceful uprising. In an interview with Vice News, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who would go on to become the architect of the 7 October attacks, expressed his disappointment at the failure of the international community to support this peaceful movement for Palestinian rights in the face of Israeli occupation. He argued that this demonstrated the futility of peaceful means in fighting the occupation.⁸ He made clear that had peaceful means worked, they would have been preferred to resorting to violence.

16. The foregoing illustrates that Hamas is best recognized as an anti-colonial liberation movement that channels the popular sentiments of the Palestinian people. While its tactics on 7 October have been the target of legitimate criticism, its proscription as a terrorist organization is of questionable justification. It is its grassroots popularity--which climbed considerably in the wake of the Gaza War--and its desire to respond to the Palestinian demand for basic human dignity in the face of decades of occupation that requires any government that wishes to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in good faith to take Hamas seriously as an interlocutor with a significant constituency that may even make up a majority of the Palestinians at present.⁹ Despite the actions of Hamas on 7 October, it is conceivable that such a group may become a recognized dialogue partner in a successful peace initiative in the not too distant future, as was the case with the IRA in the Northern Ireland peace process.

17. Its grassroots popularity should not be viewed as a consequence of antisemitism. It is a consequence of the apartheid reality that the Palestinians have been living for many years at this point. This fact, recognized for years by human rights organizations, including Israeli ones, has finally been granted recognition by the International Court of Justice and forms binding international law for all the world’s states, including the UK.¹⁰ The legal fact of apartheid offers the clearest context in which to understand the behaviour of a group like Hamas on 7 October 2023. The statements of the recently assassinated former heads of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, make clear that 7 October attacks were ultimately concerned with the cause of Palestinian liberation. Western peace initiatives have been viewed as in no way mitigating the harsh realities of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories.

18. Hamas differs from other groups designated as terrorist by the UK government, such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, due to the latters’ widespread rejection by Muslims both in their locales and in the wider Muslim world. While the latter groups may claim a right based on their fight against colonial occupation, they do not have the grassroots popularity, nor the long-suffering grassroots social welfare contributions that have helped a group like Hamas develop a keen sense of the demands of the Gazans whom they have governed for so long. Hamas has never been accused of attacking any state aside from the state that is recognized under international law as illegally occupying the Palestinian territories.

19. In the Palestinian context of abandonment and systemic oppression, Hamas must be understood as a rational actor operating within the constraints of an inequitable system. Its governance in Gaza, despite being shaped by the extreme pressures of blockade and war, reflects a commitment to addressing the basic needs of its constituency. Hamas’s provision of social services and resistance to Israeli occupation distinguish it from transnational terrorist groups such as ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Unlike these entities, Hamas’s focus is rooted in the specific goal of ending Israel’s illegal occupation, a struggle recognized under international law as legitimate.

20. The historical parallels with other liberation movements, such as the ANC in South Africa or the IRA in Northern Ireland, further underscore the potential for Hamas to transition into a recognized political actor. In both cases, engagement with groups initially labelled as terrorist organizations paved the way for peace processes that addressed the grievances driving conflict. Hamas’s willingness to negotiate, as demonstrated in its acceptance, in its revised 2017 Charter, of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, highlights its pragmatic approach and capacity for dialogue.

5. WESTERN AND ARAB STATES

21. A major driver for the 7 October attacks was the so-called Abraham Accords, a series of normalization treaties between several Arab states and Israel.¹¹ The Accords, signed in 2020, marked a significant shift in the regional dynamics of the Middle East. These agreements, brokered by the first Trump administration, normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, including the UAE and Bahrain. While presented as a step toward regional peace, the Accords have had unintended and deleterious consequences, contributing to the escalation of violence and the deepening of existing political divides. By prioritizing normalization with Israel over the resolution of the Palestinian question, the Abraham Accords effectively sidelined the Palestinian Authority and further undermined its legitimacy in the eyes of many Palestinians. The Accords were perceived as a betrayal by the Arab states. They served to further marginalize the Palestinians, who had already been living under occupation for over fifty years, and diminishing their leverage in any future negotiations at no cost to their illegal Israeli occupiers.

22. Historically, Arab states deliberately maintained no relations with Israel as long as it did not recognize a Palestinian state. However, in recent years, with the emergence of a new generation of Arab monarchs, particularly in the Gulf states, attitudes began to change dramatically.¹² The 2011 Arab revolutions brought Israeli security institutions into close alignment with several Arab monarchies and dictatorships. These Arab states were very concerned about the threat their populations posed to their autocratic grip on power and consequently drew on Israeli intelligence and spyware tools sold to them as a means of policing their disenfranchised populations.¹³

23. The most notable player in this regard was the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under the Trump presidency, the UAE was the first to accept normalization with Israel, formalizing its relationship publicly in the Abraham Accords. Though these have been dubbed as peace treaties, the states with which they have been signed have never been at war with Israel. Aside from the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco have all normalized relations with Israel. The greatest prize in Israeli normalization is viewed as Saudi Arabia, one of the largest states in the Arab world in terms of population and economic output. Saudi Arabia's unrealized yet still possible normalization was perceived as potentially threatening the very existence of the Palestinian issue. Supporters of Palestine have vehemently critiqued the Abraham Accords in public fora, seeing them as the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian cause.

24. The Abraham Accords also emboldened the Israeli government, signaling that notwithstanding countless infractions against international law, Israel could secure normalization without making any concessions to the Palestinians. The Accords, in effect, legitimized the status quo of occupation and weakened the international pressure on Israel to engage in meaningful peace talks. This, in turn, fueled a sense of despair and hopelessness among Palestinians, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, where they already faced dire humanitarian conditions.

25. The events of 7 October 2023, cannot be viewed in isolation from this broader context of shifts in policy and attitudes among the region’s (undemocratic) rulers. The Abraham Accords, while ostensibly intended to promote peace, in fact contributed to the escalation of violence by further undermining the powerless Palestinian political class, emboldening the Israeli government, and deepening the sense of despair among millions of Palestinians.

26. The Abraham Accords thus represent a fundamental mistake if they are to be understood as an effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, given that they circumvent the core issue of Palestinian self-determination and implicitly legitimate Israel’s victimization of the Palestinian people. These agreements normalize Israel’s relationships with several Arab states while tacitly accepting the continuation of its occupation and annexation policies. By excluding the Palestinians from negotiations, the Accords render their plight invisible on the global stage, undermining the principles of equity and justice that underpin any sustainable peace. Such exclusion not only ignores the right to self-determination but also violates the collective commitment enshrined in the UN Charter and international legal instruments.

27. In effect, the Accords have emboldened Israel to deepen its apartheid practices, further entrenching an illegal occupation condemned by the ICJ in its 19 July 2024 Advisory Opinion. Rather than promoting peace, these agreements have exacerbated tensions, alienating the Palestinians while stoking resentment across the Arab world. The complicity of neighbouring Arab states in perpetuating Palestinian suffering bears serious reflection. Their rhetoric of solidarity with the Palestinian cause rings hollow when contrasted with their actions.

28. Wealthy Gulf states, for example, have demonstrated their reluctance to use their economic leverage to challenge Israel’s apartheid policies. Indeed, their support for the Abraham Accords shows their active disinterest in upholding international law as it applies to the Palestinians. Egypt, meanwhile, plays a pivotal role in enforcing the blockade of Gaza despite the ongoing genocide, restricting access to the Rafah border crossing and contributing to the humanitarian crisis in the territory. By aligning their policies with Israeli security objectives, these Arab states prioritize their geopolitical interests over the fundamental rights of Palestinians. These failures highlight a broader trend of regional disengagement from the Palestinian struggle, further isolating the Palestinians and undermining collective resistance to occupation.

6. UNDERSTANDING 7 OCTOBER

29. It is in this context that we must understand the 7 October attacks. The Palestinian issue was at the heart of this attack. Despite the likely war crimes perpetrated during the attack and the exponentially greater number of war crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians in response by the Israeli state over the last 15 months, there is no question that the Palestinian issue has been definitively put back on the map. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories has never been more severely delegitimized in the international arena as it has been by the genocide of the past year. The attacks of 7 October were calculated, according to the testimony of Hamas’ own leaders, to revive the dying embers of the Palestinian cause.

30. The late head of the Hamas’ political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, articulated this in January 2024 in a lengthy speech in Doha.¹⁴ Haniyeh argued that three key developments led to the 7 October offensive:

    1. The global marginalization of the Palestinian cause: The international community, including those involved in creating international policy, had largely stopped prioritizing the Palestinian issue. This is evidenced by the lack of international conferences and resolutions, and a decline in discussion about the two-state solution. Haniyeh suggested that the world was beginning to view the Palestinian issue as an internal Israeli matter.

    2. The rise of an extremist Israeli government: Haniyeh characterized the incumbent Israeli government as religiously and nationally extremist, prioritizing control over Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and maintaining the blockade of Gaza. He asserted that this government reflected a broader trend of religious and national extremism within Israeli society.

    3. Regional betrayal via normalization: Haniyeh criticized the normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab states, viewing it as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. He argued that this normalization accepts Israel as a legitimate state at the expense of Palestinian rights and aspirations. He called this a move towards "regional peace" built upon the denial of Palestinian rights.

31. In his extensive piece on the 7 October attack and Israel’s deadly response, American investigative journalist, Jeremy Scahill, argues emphatically that the Palestinian cause has been turned into a global cause célèbres. Scahill states:

Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza [has] spurred an unprecedented global awakening to the plight of the Palestinian people. At no point in the 76 years since the formation of the state of Israel and the unleashing of the Nakba has there been such sustained and open anger at Israel and such widespread solidarity with the Palestinians. The massive demonstrations in cities across the globe, the severing of diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, the recalling of ambassadors, rulings from world courts against Israel, and mounting demands for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state—none of this would have taken place without the impetus of Hamas’s armed insurrection on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent war of annihilation in Gaza.¹⁵

32. While the strategy and tactics employed by Hamas in perpetrating the 7 October attacks have been condemned even by supporters of Hamas, it is difficult to question the efficacy of these attacks in bringing the Palestinian issue to light after its death knell could be heard. The Palestinian issue has been brought back to newscasts on a regular basis. Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinians has also significantly undermined Israel's claims to moral authority on the international stage. In addition, it has undermined the moral standing of all vocal supporters of Israel around the globe.

33. This has arguably been a direct consequence of the mediatization of this conflict on social media. The unfiltered live streaming of this genocide, despite the efforts of both tech giants and legacy media institutions, has given rise to regular protests in Western capitals against what is widely seen as the systematic support rendered to Israel in perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinian people. The damage to the international standing of Western institutions has been significant. This loss of moral authority will have very significant ramifications.

7. WESTERN AND ISRAELI POLICY FAILURE

34. Another dimension of the present issue that must seriously be considered by the British government, given its own history, is the necessity of dialogue with those with whom one profoundly disagrees, even to the point that they are declared terrorists by the state. This was the case with the IRA. While the British state considered the IRA illegitimate for many years, peace was not realized until the government started to engage in good faith dialogue with the group, considering among other things, the grievances that had led them to engage in terrorist acts. This has been explicitly argued by Andrew Fitz-Gibbon in a monograph on the subject.¹⁶

35. Fitz-Gibbon argues that both Hamas and Israel have been engaged in acts that may legitimately be classified as terrorism according to “compelling evidence” provided by the United Nations Human Rights Council and Amnesty International. He argues that resolving entrenched conflicts like the one between Israel and Palestine requires the courage to engage in dialogue, even with those one may have labelled terrorists. The experience from Northern Ireland demonstrates, in his view, that long-term peace is achieved not by exclusion, but by inclusion, negotiation, and the pursuit of justice for all parties.¹⁷

36. The Israeli blockade, in place since 2007, has turned the Gaza Strip into what many observers refer to as an “open-air concentration camp.” This crippling siege has severely restricted the movement of people and goods, leading to widespread poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity. Already in 2018, the United Nations was warning that Gaza is on the verge of becoming uninhabitable due to the deteriorating humanitarian conditions.¹⁸ As Sara Roy, a leading scholar on the Gaza Strip, has argued, the blockade is a deliberate policy of “de-development,” designed to render Gaza economically and socially unsustainable.¹⁹ The war of the past two years has undoubtedly realized these fears.

37. Western powers, led by the United States, have for decades publicly expressed support for the two-state solution, while in practice allowing Israel virtually free reign in illegally occupying the Palestinian territories that are meant to form the basis of a Palestinian state. This has contributed to the gradual de facto colonization of Palestinian lands over the course of three quarters of a century. It seems unlikely, however, that forceful annexation of land will be accepted after the “age of decolonization” that characterized the latter half of the twentieth century. British support for such actions on the part of Israel is likely to result in serious damage to Britain’s standing around the globe, and especially in the Global South.

38. The legal framework established by the ICJ’s 19 July 2024 Advisory Opinion offers a compelling basis for reconsidering Hamas’s designation as a terrorist organization. The Court’s unequivocal censure of Israeli apartheid and occupation policies reaffirms the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance within the bounds of international law. Under the principle of self-determination, Hamas’s actions—though controversial—can be contextualized as a response to decades of systemic oppression and dispossession.

39. Furthermore, the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 requires a proportional assessment of an organization’s activities and objectives. In the case of Hamas, its focus on resisting an illegal occupation differentiates it from groups engaged in transnational terrorism. Historical precedents, such as the deproscription of the ANC and the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), illustrate the importance of adapting policy to evolving political realities. Recognizing Hamas as a legitimate actor would align with these precedents and facilitate dialogue critical to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

8. EXPERT OBLIGATIONS

40. I confirm that I have made clear which facts and matters referred to in this report are within my own knowledge and which are not. Those that are within my own knowledge I confirm to be true. The opinions I have expressed represent my true and complete professional opinions on the matters to which they refer.

41. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought by anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

42. I confirm that I have not received any remuneration for preparing this report.

Dr Usaama al-Azami

Amsterdam

Netherlands

4 January 2025.