Danish MP Participates In Hamas Support Group Conference

On 11 April 2021, Chris­t­ian Juhl, Dan­ish MP for the left-wing Red-Green Alliance, par­tic­i­pat­ed in a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence host­ed by a recent­ly estab­lished Euro­pean Hamas sup­port group. Accord­ing to a Face­book post, the event was held “in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our pris­on­ers in the pris­ons of the occupation”:

Today, (…) the third sym­po­sium will be held in the Eng­lish lan­guage with­in the week of sol­i­dar­i­ty with our pris­on­ers in the pris­ons of the occu­pa­tion (…). [Trans­lat­ed from Ara­bic using Google.]

Read the rest here.

As part of his speech, Juhl accused Israel of sub­ject­ing Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers to med­ical neglect and unnec­es­sar­i­ly harsh treat­ment, call­ing on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and human rights orga­ni­za­tions to inter­vene on behalf of the detainees. Juhl high­light­ed his party’s role in cam­paign­ing for sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Pales­tin­ian cause and closed his remarks by say­ing the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty had to boy­cott and to “protest against Israel every­where we can do it.” (sic)

The online event was co-orga­nized by a coali­tion of Euro­pean-Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions spear­head­ed by the Euro­pean Pales­tini­ans Ini­tia­tive for Nation­al Action (EPINA). Accord­ing to a Jan­u­ary 2021 analy­sis by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR), EPINA is a Euro­pean Hamas sup­port group estab­lished in Octo­ber 2020 and whose coor­di­na­tion office includes the chief Hamas fundrais­er in Europe. EPINA’s found­ing direc­tor Majeed Al-Zeer has been iden­ti­fied by an Israeli NGO close to the country’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence as a Hamas activist who sought refuge in Britain in the 1990s. Until recent­ly, Al-Zeer also held lead­ing posi­tions in sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions part of the Euro­pean Hamas sup­port net­work and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in meet­ings of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, a transna­tion­al Islamist influ­ence oper­a­tion cov­ered by the GIOR.

Pri­or GIOR report­ing about the inter­na­tion­al Hamas sup­port net­work has also included:

• A Decem­ber 2020 report about a vir­tu­al Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy con­fer­ence that fea­tured Hamas sup­port groups and three US Congresswomen.

• A March 2021 report about the Pales­tin­ian “Al-Aqsa Inter­na­tion­al Week,” an online event that fea­tured promi­nent inter­na­tion­al pro-Hamas activists.

• A March 2021 report that new elec­tions have been held for the Pales­tini­ans in Europe Conference.

The Hamas char­ter says that it is “one of the wings of the Mus­lim Broth­ers in Pales­tine,” and a Hamas jour­nal­ist has acknowl­edged the role that the “inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” has played in pro­vid­ing funds for the pur­chase of weapons. Hamas is known to be sup­port­ed finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly by the GMB.