When it comes to the activities of jihadist terrorist organizations like al-Qaida and the Islamic State (ISIS), the Conservative Party-dominated British government has taken an increasingly tough public stance. Britain is "engaged in a struggle that is fought on many fronts and in many forms. It is a struggle that will go on for many years," Home Secretary Theresa May said last month.
In August,
Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to "redouble all our efforts" to fight terrorism by implementing policies which include "tak[ing] extremist material off the Internet." London’s Metropolitan Police warned the public that merely "viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material" such as beheading videos could violate British anti-terror laws.
But when it comes to propaganda in support of terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), government policy is far more permissive,
according to a story published by the Gatestone Institute.
The author, British anti-terror activist Samuel Westrop, writes that the PFLP (which claimed responsibility for the murder of five people at a Jerusalem synagogue last month) "draws sympathy from various political and religious groups." On Sept. 28, he writes, a British Marxist group sponsored an event featuring as its main speaker, Leila Khaled, who hijacked two airliners in 1969 and 1970. Released by the British government in a hostage exchange, she remains a member of the PFLP’s central committee today.
Westrop
— who is associate director of the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, a London-based research group
— writes that Christian Aid, "one of the UK’s largest charities, funds and supports Palestinian NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] managed by PFLP operatives."
British supporters of Hamas "are even more extreme," according to Westrop. An official with an organization called the Project for Peace and Development in Palestine (PPDP), for example, responded to the Jerusalem synagogue murders by writing: "God is Great . . . God be praised for the martyrdom operation in Jerusalem and news of the state of the killed and the injured."
Today, "the PPDP, which operates out of Gaza, maintains an office and bank account in the UK through which it privately raises funds," Westrop writes, adding that the group does not even attempt to hide its affiliations.
"It has its own weekly program on one of Hamas’ television channels, Al-Quds TV," Westrop adds, and in Britain it has "entertained members of the House of Lords."
Debates between politicians and commentators "over the causes of radicalization and extremism in Britain invariably focus on how to tackle support for groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida," Westrop writes. "But why is it that Hamas and [the] PFLP are deemed moderate, regardless of how many civilians they murder?"
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