Dear Friends,

Please find below EJC’s statement following the recommendation of the advocate general at the European Court of Justice to remove Hamas from EU’s terrorism watch list.

Best regards,
The EJC team

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EJC appalled by recommendation to remove Hamas from EU’s terrorism watch list

(Monday, September 26, 2016) – The European Jewish Congress (EJC) has said it is appalled by the recommendation of the advocate general at the European Court of Justice to remove Hamas from the sanctions list due to a technicality. Removal from the list will mean that Hamas’s assets will be unfrozen.

“It is unconscionable that European bureaucrats are playing with people’s lives due to a technicality and narrow-mindedness,” Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the EJC, said. “Hamas has murdered countless people and ensure millions more live in misery, and their means to kill many more could be given to them on a silver platter because someone in Europe feels there is not enough evidence to define them as a terrorist organization.

“One only has to open up their proudly written charter to read that they seek bloodshed and terror and even aspire to the genocide of Jewish people worldwide. If this is not enough to explicitly define them as a terrorist organization then all they have to do is employ someone who understands Arabic to read and listen to all the murders they have taken credit for throughout the years.”

Judges of the General Court ruled that EU leaders relied too heavily on media reports rather than their own investigations when they imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Hamas members.

“We call on moral and ethical leaders to rectify this issue once and for all because this isn’t some legal argument with little bearing but the potential arming of people whose raison d’être is murder and mayhem,” Dr. Kantor continued. “While Jews are continued to be targets in Europe, European bureaucrats could be providing the ammunition both on this continent and elsewhere.

“If Hamas is indeed removed from the terror watch list, then this will be the lowest and most worrying point for European Jewry in 70 years.”