Crescent International
In a landmark decision, the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg has removed Hamas and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, from the list of terrorist organizations.
This important decision was handed down on Thursday September 5.
The fact that the European Court removed Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades also from the so-called terrorist list acknowledges the fact that people under occupation have the right to resist their occupiers “by any means necessary.”
Khaled al-Shuli, the lawyer representing Hamas said in a press statement on September 6 that the European Court in Luxembourg made a landmark decision in favor of Hamas in a public hearing held on September 4.
Al-Shuli added that the court overturned all the decisions issued against Hamas and its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, over the years.
The decisions that were annulled are: Decision No. 2018/475, and 2018/1084 and the decrees issued by them numbers 2018/468 and 2018/107, according to Shuli.
Declaring Hamas and its military wing as terrorist organizations was political rather than legal in nature.
In 1974, resolution 3314 of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) prohibited states from “any military occuation, however temporary.”
The resolution not only affirmed the right “to self-determination, freedom and independence [...] of peoples forcibly deprived of that right, [...] particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination” but noted the right of the occupied to “struggle ... and to seek and receive support” in that effort.
According to lawyer and human rights activist Stanley L. Cohen, writing in Al-Jazeera (July 2017), “The term ‘armed struggle’ was implied without precise definition in that resolution and many other early ones that upheld the right of indigenous persons to evict an occupier.
“This imprecision was to change on December 3, 1982. At that time UNGA resolution 37/43 removed any doubt or debate over the lawful entitlement of occupied people to resist occupying forces by any and all lawful means. The resolution reaffirmed ‘the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle’.”
The Zionists and their enablers—Western regimes led by the US and joined by its allies in Europe and elsewhere—have deliberately tried to delegitimize the legal and legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people to self determination and existence free from Zionist colonization.
Hamas won an internationally supervised election in Gaza in 2006. The following year, it established the government there.
Under international law, it should have been recognized. Instead, the Zionists intensified its vilification and like dutiful slaves, the Western regimes said ‘Amen’ to every Zionist demand and allegation.
As an occupying power, Zionist Israel is obliged, under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to not oppress the Palestinian people. It is obliged to provide them food, water and safety and security.
What is the reality? Gaza is under total siege and has been turned into an open-air prison.
Food, medicines and other essential needs of necessity for survival have been blocked.
Life is intolerable in Gaza. Nearly 95% of the water is contaminated; 90% of the population is food deficient and its few hospitals are woefully inadequate to cope with people’s demands because of lack of medicines.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza constitutes a war crime. Zionist rulers should be charged with war crimes.
By removing Hamas and the Qassam Brigades from the terrorist list, the European Court has taken the first step in support of rule-based international order.
The next step should be to put the Zionist rulers on trial for war crimes spanning many decades.
