As the organisation leading the Jewish community’s response to Hamas’ application for de-proscription as a terrorist organisation, we cannot allow the article by the terror group’s lawyer, Fahad Ansari, to go unchallenged.
There are many aspects of the application that demand scrutiny.
To begin with, one must examine the choice to represent Hamas at all. Mr Ansari recommends that we ‘respect the convention that [one] should not be identified with [one’s] clients as a result of discharging [one’s] functions’, but he also emphasises that he and his colleagues are acting for the genocidal organisation in a pro bono capacity.
Whereas paid lawyers may represent their clients no matter what they think of them, by acting pro bono he and his team have chosen to represent Hamas – without demanding a penny.
If their choice to donate their time to representing Hamas begs questions, one might seek questions in their public personas. Mr Ansari and his colleague Franck Magennis have made themselves highly visible in the media, publicising Hamas’ case and attempting to put pressure on the Home Secretary.
Between the pro bono representation, media appearances and social media activity, it is hard to avoid wondering whether client approached lawyer or vice versa.
In our response to the application, we have set out the untruths, selective histories and contradictions in the ‘Hamas case’.
But why is this application being brought now? Hamas’ so-called ‘military wing’ has been proscribed in the UK since 2001, and its ‘political wing’ (for those who futilely cling to a distinction) since 2021.
The application is brought as a human rights claim. A group that has deprived well over a thousand Jews of their lives and deprived some two million Gazans of their safety has the audacity to invoke human rights. The argument is that the proscription deprives British citizens of freedom of expression and protest.
We’ve been told for a year and a half that the protesters on our streets and the activists intimidating Jews on campuses and cultural institutions are not terrorist sympathisers. So whose rights are being curtailed? Are there people in Britain desperate to express support for Hamas and its aspiration to annihilate the Jewish people? This case assumes so. And if it succeeds and Hamas is de-proscribed, might ISIS, Hizballah or Al Qaeda be applying to Mr Ansari’s firm’s pro bono programme?
There might be a much darker reason that the application has been brought now: Hamas needs funding. This application does not do anything to help Gazans; it simply opens the door for a depleted and desperate Hamas to access resources, steal more aid money, continue to hold hostages and perpetuate the fighting.
We hope that the Home Secretary will firmly reject this appalling application without hesitation. We also hope that the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board will closely examine our professional standards complaints against the lawyers advancing the ‘Hamas case’.
Gideon Falter is chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism
