Hamas is an important part of the Palestinian movement, despite its Islamist politics. Its struggle against the Israeli assaults on Gaza and its work to defend the people of Palestine have been heroic. Therefore, it is welcome to see the European Union’s (EU) General Court annulling the EU decision to keep Hamas on its list of terrorist organisations. It was particularly disturbing that the court found that the decision to declare Hamas a supposed terrorist organisation was not made on the basis of facts confirmed by competent authorities, but was wrongly based “on imputations derived from the press and the internet”.
It is regrettable that the court’s decision has not been accepted by the European Commission (EC). Immediately after the ruling, the EC said EU would continue to consider Hamas a terrorist organisation and would consider its response to the ruling, which it described as a technical decision. It would also continue to enforce the freezing of Hamas assets within its territories.
Even so, only hours after the verdict, in a separate move, the European Parliament adopted a resolution supporting “in principle, recognition of Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution”, and calling for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to be “advanced”. Looking ahead, Hamas needs to learn to work with Fatah to reunite and support the unity government, which has tragically failed to start despite all the commitments to make it work. All Palestinians need to jointly seek a better life for their people and a fair and just peace with Israel.
