EU court orders Hamas removal from terror blacklist

 

The General Court of the European Union said the contested measures were not based on an examination of Hamas\’s acts but on imputations derived from the media and the Internet.

 

The court said it was nevertheless maintaining the effects of the measures in order to ensure that any possible future freezing of funds would be effective. 

 

Hamas official Izzat al-Rishaq praised the decision, saying that the court had righted an injustice done to the organization, which he called a "national freedom movement," rather than a terrorist organization.

 

Likud MK Danny Danon criticized the decision, saying that "the Europeans must believe that there blood is more sacred than the blood of the Jews which they see as unimportant – that is the only way to explain the EU court\’s decision to remove Hamas from the terror blacklist," he said.

 

"In Europe they must have forgotten that Hamas kidnapped three boys and fired thousands of rockets last summer at Israeli citizens," he added.

 

Ahead of the decision, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said on Tuesday it was unlikely that the court would decide to take the organization off the terrorist list, but rather would ask for more evidence to keep it on. He said there was no support among the EU states to take Hamas off the list, and that two central countries – which he would not name – already were building up a stronger dossier of evidence of Hamas terrorism to take to the court.

 

One diplomatic official said the whole discussion was “absurd in the extreme.”

 

“It was just last month that you had the vicious, brutal attack at the Har Nof synagogue [in Jerusalem] that received wall-to-wall condemnation around the world,” he said. “Hamas openly celebrated the atrocity and called for more such attacks. Hamas has proven that it remains a hardcore terrorist organization.”