Mick Hartley

Oh boy. David Rose at the JC:

The Foreign Office held a seminar at which officials were told that calling Hamas terrorists was an “obstacle to peace” and it was suggested that Israel was a “white, settler colonialist nation”, the JC can reveal.

Four academics, led by Professor Jeroen Gunning from King’s College London, delivered the session to civil servants, including those specialising in the Middle East, at the British diplomatic service’s London headquarters last Wednesday.

Many of the claims made during the 75-minute meeting directly contradicted Britain’s foreign policy, with Professor Gunning claiming that there could be “no future without Hamas”….

Several of the speakers said that to apply the “terrorist label” to Hamas was “unhelpful” and an obstacle to peace. In their view, Hamas’s “political wing” was “moderate”, and there was therefore a need to “engage with them”.

One of the lecturers, Dr Tristan Dunning, from the University of Queensland, said that as an Australian, “I know all about white, settler colonialism and stealing land from the native population”….

Although Hamas had failed to build civilian bomb shelters and barred ordinary people from its tunnels, the lecturers said, protecting civilians was the responsibility of the “occupying power” and the high civilian casualty rate was Israel’s fault.

Asked about the Israeli hostages, one of speakers claimed that Palestinian convicts in Israel were “hostages too”, adding that there were thousands of prisoners but only about 100 Israelis held in Gaza.

Professor Gunning and Dr Dunning were joined by Dr Anas Iqtait of Australian National University in Canberra and the University of Sydney’s Dr Martin Kear.

They had co-authored a paper submitted to the House of Commons on Foreign Affairs Select Committee on 7 November that claimed Britain was partly to blame for the October 7 massacre and could now be held accountable for “genocide”….