In a legal filing, a Hamas founder argues that the group has the right to use armed resistance to achieve Palestinian liberation—and that Britain is crushing honest debate about its aims.
DAWN has urged the ICC prosecutor to investigate and prosecute former President Biden, State Secretary Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin for their personal roles in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza as part of his ongoing investigation into the situations in Palestine since 2014.
Let’s give them our support. Maybe they will expand their complaint to include this latest US administration, and include all the leaders of the western nations supporting this genocide.
This is an excellent report, with a great many, very informative details. Thank you so much.
Given the UK's craven acts against the Palestinian position, is there any chance the plaintiffs' attorneys could be charged for supporting a 'terrorist' organization just for working for and filing on Hamas's behalf?
the majority of our representatives still have their heads up their ass.
so this law suite is perfect to expose their sociopathic nature. To supply weaponary and other support to a sick regime that's committing genocide is as sick as the Zionist themselves.
The charge of "terrorism" much like "anti-semitism" have been used and abused to the extend that both terms have lost its real meaning and it is used only as a political tool to crush the opponent. In many cases, those charges have become a badge of honor.
I would not suggest that anyone hold their breath waiting for justice from the British judicial system. I don’t know that Britian “invented” colonialism, but it sure qualifies as the undisputed poster child for it.
Excellent piece, Jeremy, excellent news, excellent reporting and and hopefully resulting in an excellent legal precident.
What has been festering in my mind for some time is this:
Why haven't every Palestinian resistance organization and every Palestinian aid organization taken Western governments and Western media organizations (and also now Western educational establishments) to court for eight decades of ceaseless libel, slander and defamation?
I know that laws vary from one nation to another regarding what is admissable, but surely this is an avenue that can be pursued.
The evidence of wrongdoing and conspiracy is beyond overwhelming. We need test cases to be filed and decided in critical jurisdictions all across the offending nations.
Hamas has actually filed a case before, to get out from under the terrorist branding, against the European Union back in 2010. The first EU Court took 4 years to find that Hamas was not terrorists - not even their armed wing. Then the highest EU court overturned the verdict in a heartbeat. The link to the EU Court finding they were not terrorists is halfway down in this post: https://mariannebergvall.substack.com/p/labelling-hamas-as-terrorists-perpetuates (I missed a letter in the link first, but now it works:)
this is it. clear, honest, and carries the information, that needs to be published, send to every single politician, presented on court. The world needs to turn around something that has been going into the wrong direction for decades. Its getting too obvious and hopefuly there will be change and justice for Palestine.
He may have a point because the occupation of now many decades is illegal per the 4th Geneva Convention. Secondly because what's never mentioned is that Hamas revised its charters in 2017 to state that it was not against Jews but the occupation. Had Israel chosen in 2018 to be a democracy like the US, instead of a theocracy, maybe Oct. 7 would not have happened. As for terrorists, didn't the British consider Menachem Begin its #! terrorist before 1948? Several other future prime ministers were as well. Is the current one going to be nominated for a Nobel?
In his declaration, Marzouk invoked British colonialism in historic Palestine and identified Britain’s role in violently establishing the Israeli state on Palestinian territory. He portrayed the U.K.’s current support of Israel’s war in Gaza as a modern extension of past policies. “We consider the following to be null and void: the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate for Palestine, the UN Palestine Partition Resolution, and whatever resolutions and measures that derive from them or are similar to them. The establishment of ‘Israel’ is a profound historical mistake, one that contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” he wrote.
The important part here is that this position negates the foundational international decisions that created Israel — regardless of policy changes like the 2017 charter revision. The core argument remains: Israel as a state has no legitimacy in their view.
So even if Israel had transitioned to a secular democracy in 2018, or altered its policies, the stated position here shows that this conflict would still exist. The claim isn’t about reform — it’s about undoing 75 years of history. That means the idea that October 7 wouldn’t have happened if Israel had changed internally doesn’t hold up under what Hamas leadership actually says.
So you stopped reading what Marzouk said after the first sentence. Read the next one also. Hamas has two thoughts in their head: One) they don't like that Israel has taken over most of the Palestinian lands, and want it all back, and Two) they are willing to go along with a two state solution if that is what the Palestinian people want. The meaning is very clear - they accept the two state solution and has done for decades.
I read the whole article, no worries—even watched the Breaking Points episode. My point was never that the article didn’t make good arguments—it does in parts. But I brought up that quote because it captures the core ideological stance, which wouldn’t have changed with some minor political tweak in Israel.
The reality is: this would’ve happened either way. The attack wasn’t contingent on some fine-tuned diplomatic shift or party platform. It was the outcome of a long buildup of ideology, rage, strategy, and calculation. That’s why I pointed out that quote—because it reflects the underlying framework driving the violence, regardless of optics.
And while some arguments in the piece might sound reasonable on the surface, let’s not glorify people like Marzouk. These are still deeply religious ideologues. His talk of defending free speech and fighting antisemitism is some of the most absurd propaganda I’ve read in a while. And when he references democracy? Hamas hasn’t held an election since 2007.
So yeah—read it, engage with it, but take it with a truckload of salt. It’s propaganda. Just better dressed than usual.
It doesn't make sense that in terms of the unprecedented number of Palestinian women and children killed that it's always Muslims that are the "deeply religious ideologues." Especially Israel's concern before the Hamas attack was demographics. If Israel were. democracy, it's unlikely Hamas and the attack would have happened. The following is from Mearsheimer and Walt's book. "The fact that the creation of Israel entailed a grave injustice against the Palestinian people was well understood by Israel’s leaders. As Ben Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, president of the Word Jewish Congress, in 1956, 'If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?'" All that's incorrect is Ben Gurion's convenient statement that Muslims don't worship the same God--they do, and the Koran has many references to Jews as "the children of the book" in it--negative but also positive.
I read the Mearsheimer Walt article that either preceded or followed the book (I can’t remember which), and was struck by the same Ben-Gurion quote, which I passed on to some friends. The article is long. It made me aware that things I was noticing on my own, e.g., the weaponization of “antisemitism” to include anything critical of Israel, as well as the justification that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” were longstanding memes developed as a propaganda decades ago. Yet they’re still being used, not only by Israel, but by our mainstream press in the U.S., our universities and the Democratic Party. Biden used that identical language in response to an email I sent the White House in support of a ceasefire in early 2024, despite my having said in my email that killing children was not “defense.” They of course knew this, just as they knew the stories of beheaded babies had been debunked. They used them anyway. Thus they were dishonest and cynical and not just naive.
I think you made some valid points, and taken in isolation, they stand solidly. But let me invite you into my thought process—because demographic anxiety, nation-building, and forced population movements are not unique to Israel or Palestine.
Take Czechoslovakia, for example. Ever heard of the "Czechoslovak" nationality? It never existed until the 20th century. It was invented as a demographic strategy: there were more Germans than Slovaks in the newly formed state. To prevent Germans from having more political influence, we just made up a shared “Czechoslovak” identity. Not moral, not immoral—just cold demographic engineering.
That same region later saw some of the largest ethnic cleansings in modern history. After WWII, 12–14 million ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from Eastern and Central Europe. Between 500,000 and 2 million died. Czechoslovakia alone expelled around 3 million, and yes, we murdered a significant number of them.
This happened at the exact same historical moment as the Palestinian Nakba—same era, same geopolitical chaos. But the international response was entirely different. The Germans got no refugee status, no "right of return" movement, and minimal long-term support. Their homeland was in ruins, and yet... no permanent refugee camps, no ongoing insurgency. They integrated—painfully and imperfectly—but they moved on.
No one fears that a Sudeten German will shout "mein Wienerschnitzel" and blow up a bus.
So why the radically different outcomes? In my view, part of it comes down to:
- The narrative built around the displacement (UN support, identity politics, religious framing)
- The international community treating Palestinians as a permanent exception
- And yes, a religious and cultural attachment to the land that fuels cycles of grievance
This doesn’t absolve Israel. They’ve committed and continue to commit actions that meet definitions of ethnic cleansing—even genocide by some legal standards. But when we step back and compare it to similar post-war events, the Palestinian case is not uniquely horrific—it’s uniquely politicized.
Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to invite you into how I think about this—why I tend to frame it more as a religious issue than a purely national one.
Yes, my analogy is flawed. There are too many variables to "simulate" entire historical events. But when I cut through the ideological noise and compare it to something with similar—if not worse—causes and consequences that I actually have personal proximity to, the emotional and political narrative just doesn’t add up.
Thank you so much, Jeremy, for starting Drop Site News and being the people you are. It truly brings hope in a very dark world. I have been addicted to Drop Site News since the very first post - "On the Record with Hamas" on July 9. It was totally inspiring! I had supported Hamas since they won the election in 2006. Reading your post made me start my own account on Substack, and I posted my first post a week after that. And then Israel murdered Ismail Haniyeh two weeks later. Stopping Israel is more urgent than ever! https://mariannebergvall.substack.com/p/this-is-why-i-support-hamas
DAWN has urged the ICC prosecutor to investigate and prosecute former President Biden, State Secretary Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin for their personal roles in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza as part of his ongoing investigation into the situations in Palestine since 2014.
https://dawnmena.org/latest/
Let’s give them our support. Maybe they will expand their complaint to include this latest US administration, and include all the leaders of the western nations supporting this genocide.
This is an excellent report, with a great many, very informative details. Thank you so much.
Given the UK's craven acts against the Palestinian position, is there any chance the plaintiffs' attorneys could be charged for supporting a 'terrorist' organization just for working for and filing on Hamas's behalf?
Thank you Drop Site and Jeremy for this articule.
I hope Mr.Mousa Abu Marzouk and the Palestinian people get a fair & just hearing by the British.
I also hope the people of GAZA can survive and succeed this US, UK, West European supported GENOCIDE.
Wouldn't we all love to see the zionist murderers take a hard one for once.
the majoarity of the people are with you
the majority of our representatives still have their heads up their ass.
so this law suite is perfect to expose their sociopathic nature. To supply weaponary and other support to a sick regime that's committing genocide is as sick as the Zionist themselves.
refuse fascism
oppose oppression
dear comrades
Microsoft action Microsoft workers oppose ties with Israel.
Take action with us — and support the Microsoft workers organizing to cut the company’s ties with Israel’s military
https://act.mpowerchange.org/go/71588?t=3&akid=10199%2E809623%2EH7UcG5
Microsoft and other tech partners, like Google and Amazon, are helping redefine the ugly underbelly of U.S. technology’s use in war.
We’ve set up a digital action where you can send emails to Microsoft leadership, including AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, with just a few clicks.
The charge of "terrorism" much like "anti-semitism" have been used and abused to the extend that both terms have lost its real meaning and it is used only as a political tool to crush the opponent. In many cases, those charges have become a badge of honor.
I would not suggest that anyone hold their breath waiting for justice from the British judicial system. I don’t know that Britian “invented” colonialism, but it sure qualifies as the undisputed poster child for it.
They might not should have mentioned the Irish Republican Army in their filing before a British court, even though it's a good example. :-)
Yes about time , and while their at it designate Israel as a terrorist state.
lauriemillejade.com
Excellent piece, Jeremy, excellent news, excellent reporting and and hopefully resulting in an excellent legal precident.
What has been festering in my mind for some time is this:
Why haven't every Palestinian resistance organization and every Palestinian aid organization taken Western governments and Western media organizations (and also now Western educational establishments) to court for eight decades of ceaseless libel, slander and defamation?
I know that laws vary from one nation to another regarding what is admissable, but surely this is an avenue that can be pursued.
The evidence of wrongdoing and conspiracy is beyond overwhelming. We need test cases to be filed and decided in critical jurisdictions all across the offending nations.
Hamas has actually filed a case before, to get out from under the terrorist branding, against the European Union back in 2010. The first EU Court took 4 years to find that Hamas was not terrorists - not even their armed wing. Then the highest EU court overturned the verdict in a heartbeat. The link to the EU Court finding they were not terrorists is halfway down in this post: https://mariannebergvall.substack.com/p/labelling-hamas-as-terrorists-perpetuates (I missed a letter in the link first, but now it works:)
Petition for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-the-immediate-release-of-columbia-student-pro-palestine-advocate-mahmoud-khalil-from-dhs-detention
this is it. clear, honest, and carries the information, that needs to be published, send to every single politician, presented on court. The world needs to turn around something that has been going into the wrong direction for decades. Its getting too obvious and hopefuly there will be change and justice for Palestine.
Outstanding reporting. Courage is a main character.
He may have a point because the occupation of now many decades is illegal per the 4th Geneva Convention. Secondly because what's never mentioned is that Hamas revised its charters in 2017 to state that it was not against Jews but the occupation. Had Israel chosen in 2018 to be a democracy like the US, instead of a theocracy, maybe Oct. 7 would not have happened. As for terrorists, didn't the British consider Menachem Begin its #! terrorist before 1948? Several other future prime ministers were as well. Is the current one going to be nominated for a Nobel?
Direct citation:
In his declaration, Marzouk invoked British colonialism in historic Palestine and identified Britain’s role in violently establishing the Israeli state on Palestinian territory. He portrayed the U.K.’s current support of Israel’s war in Gaza as a modern extension of past policies. “We consider the following to be null and void: the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate for Palestine, the UN Palestine Partition Resolution, and whatever resolutions and measures that derive from them or are similar to them. The establishment of ‘Israel’ is a profound historical mistake, one that contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” he wrote.
The important part here is that this position negates the foundational international decisions that created Israel — regardless of policy changes like the 2017 charter revision. The core argument remains: Israel as a state has no legitimacy in their view.
So even if Israel had transitioned to a secular democracy in 2018, or altered its policies, the stated position here shows that this conflict would still exist. The claim isn’t about reform — it’s about undoing 75 years of history. That means the idea that October 7 wouldn’t have happened if Israel had changed internally doesn’t hold up under what Hamas leadership actually says.
So you stopped reading what Marzouk said after the first sentence. Read the next one also. Hamas has two thoughts in their head: One) they don't like that Israel has taken over most of the Palestinian lands, and want it all back, and Two) they are willing to go along with a two state solution if that is what the Palestinian people want. The meaning is very clear - they accept the two state solution and has done for decades.
I read the whole article, no worries—even watched the Breaking Points episode. My point was never that the article didn’t make good arguments—it does in parts. But I brought up that quote because it captures the core ideological stance, which wouldn’t have changed with some minor political tweak in Israel.
The reality is: this would’ve happened either way. The attack wasn’t contingent on some fine-tuned diplomatic shift or party platform. It was the outcome of a long buildup of ideology, rage, strategy, and calculation. That’s why I pointed out that quote—because it reflects the underlying framework driving the violence, regardless of optics.
And while some arguments in the piece might sound reasonable on the surface, let’s not glorify people like Marzouk. These are still deeply religious ideologues. His talk of defending free speech and fighting antisemitism is some of the most absurd propaganda I’ve read in a while. And when he references democracy? Hamas hasn’t held an election since 2007.
So yeah—read it, engage with it, but take it with a truckload of salt. It’s propaganda. Just better dressed than usual.
It doesn't make sense that in terms of the unprecedented number of Palestinian women and children killed that it's always Muslims that are the "deeply religious ideologues." Especially Israel's concern before the Hamas attack was demographics. If Israel were. democracy, it's unlikely Hamas and the attack would have happened. The following is from Mearsheimer and Walt's book. "The fact that the creation of Israel entailed a grave injustice against the Palestinian people was well understood by Israel’s leaders. As Ben Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, president of the Word Jewish Congress, in 1956, 'If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?'" All that's incorrect is Ben Gurion's convenient statement that Muslims don't worship the same God--they do, and the Koran has many references to Jews as "the children of the book" in it--negative but also positive.
I read the Mearsheimer Walt article that either preceded or followed the book (I can’t remember which), and was struck by the same Ben-Gurion quote, which I passed on to some friends. The article is long. It made me aware that things I was noticing on my own, e.g., the weaponization of “antisemitism” to include anything critical of Israel, as well as the justification that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” were longstanding memes developed as a propaganda decades ago. Yet they’re still being used, not only by Israel, but by our mainstream press in the U.S., our universities and the Democratic Party. Biden used that identical language in response to an email I sent the White House in support of a ceasefire in early 2024, despite my having said in my email that killing children was not “defense.” They of course knew this, just as they knew the stories of beheaded babies had been debunked. They used them anyway. Thus they were dishonest and cynical and not just naive.
I think you made some valid points, and taken in isolation, they stand solidly. But let me invite you into my thought process—because demographic anxiety, nation-building, and forced population movements are not unique to Israel or Palestine.
Take Czechoslovakia, for example. Ever heard of the "Czechoslovak" nationality? It never existed until the 20th century. It was invented as a demographic strategy: there were more Germans than Slovaks in the newly formed state. To prevent Germans from having more political influence, we just made up a shared “Czechoslovak” identity. Not moral, not immoral—just cold demographic engineering.
That same region later saw some of the largest ethnic cleansings in modern history. After WWII, 12–14 million ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from Eastern and Central Europe. Between 500,000 and 2 million died. Czechoslovakia alone expelled around 3 million, and yes, we murdered a significant number of them.
This happened at the exact same historical moment as the Palestinian Nakba—same era, same geopolitical chaos. But the international response was entirely different. The Germans got no refugee status, no "right of return" movement, and minimal long-term support. Their homeland was in ruins, and yet... no permanent refugee camps, no ongoing insurgency. They integrated—painfully and imperfectly—but they moved on.
No one fears that a Sudeten German will shout "mein Wienerschnitzel" and blow up a bus.
So why the radically different outcomes? In my view, part of it comes down to:
- The narrative built around the displacement (UN support, identity politics, religious framing)
- The international community treating Palestinians as a permanent exception
- And yes, a religious and cultural attachment to the land that fuels cycles of grievance
This doesn’t absolve Israel. They’ve committed and continue to commit actions that meet definitions of ethnic cleansing—even genocide by some legal standards. But when we step back and compare it to similar post-war events, the Palestinian case is not uniquely horrific—it’s uniquely politicized.
Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to invite you into how I think about this—why I tend to frame it more as a religious issue than a purely national one.
Yes, my analogy is flawed. There are too many variables to "simulate" entire historical events. But when I cut through the ideological noise and compare it to something with similar—if not worse—causes and consequences that I actually have personal proximity to, the emotional and political narrative just doesn’t add up.
Thank you so much, Jeremy, for starting Drop Site News and being the people you are. It truly brings hope in a very dark world. I have been addicted to Drop Site News since the very first post - "On the Record with Hamas" on July 9. It was totally inspiring! I had supported Hamas since they won the election in 2006. Reading your post made me start my own account on Substack, and I posted my first post a week after that. And then Israel murdered Ismail Haniyeh two weeks later. Stopping Israel is more urgent than ever! https://mariannebergvall.substack.com/p/this-is-why-i-support-hamas
This news of Hamas' attempt to transition politically in western eyes is heartening. Thank you Jeremy and team.