“Today’s EU General Court judgment is procedural and does not mean the EU and UK have changed their position on Hamas.” This was the wording of the Dec. 17 announcement by the British Foreign Office following the removal that day of the Hamas movement from the European Union’s list of terror organizations.
On the face of it, this was indeed a procedural-technical ruling. It was based on the Tamil Tigers precedent, a decision by the European Court of Justice from October 2014 to remove the Sri Lankan organization from the EU list of terror groups, accepting its appeal that its inclusion on the list had violated procedure and was devoid of strong legal proof. Hamas identified the Achilles' heel of the “black list” and submitted a similar appeal, following which it too was removed from the list. The court delayed implementation of its ruling for three months to allow appeals and submission of incriminating evidence against the organization.
The story of Hamas' effort to expunge its name from the terror groups list is far more complex than a simple technical issue. Since turning into a political, parliamentary movement in the 2006 Palestinian Authority (PA) elections, it has aspired to prove to the Palestinians and to the world at large that it is a legitimate movement representing the Palestinian people’s quest for their rights, as proven by its election to the Palestinian Legislative Council in democratic elections.
Hamas' international efforts were given a boost in recent years by Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister in the Gaza government of Ismail Haniyeh. Hamad decided to devote all his energies and activities to convincing the countries of the world that Hamas had changed, that it had not conducted terror attacks against civilians for a decade, that its fighters in the Gaza Strip acted and operated like any other army in the world. Ahmed Yousef, Haniyeh’s adviser on diplomatic issues and a friend of Hamad, also joined in the effort. The two are considered leaders of the pragmatic school of thought in Hamas and in the past had even been ostracized by the military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, for their moderate positions and for suspicion of having held talks with Israel on lifting its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
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