Hamas Support Group Launches Campaign Targeting European Media Outlets Over Alleged Israeli Bias

On 19 May 2021, the Pales­tini­ans in Europe Con­fer­ence (PEC) launched a cam­paign urg­ing its Face­book fol­low­ers to con­tact Euro­pean media out­lets over their alleged par­tial­i­ty towards Israel in the Mid­dle East con­flict. Accord­ing to the PEC Face­book post:

Days ago, many peo­ple around the world went out to demon­strate [peace­ful­ly] to express their rejec­tion of the vio­lent attacks and the siege imposed on Pales­tin­ian civil­ians in the Gaza Strip. Most Euro­pean media speaks about the right of [the] Israeli occu­pa­tion to defend itself. These reports ignore civil­ian vic­tims on the Pales­tin­ian side. [Trans­lat­ed from Ara­bic using Google.]

Read the rest here.

The group called on its fol­low­ers to take the lead in demand­ing Euro­pean media “objec­tive­ly” report on the con­flict, pro­vid­ing a list of email address­es of edi­tors at lead­ing news out­lets from coun­tries includ­ing the Nether­lands, Ger­many, Aus­tria, Den­mark, Swe­den, and France.

The Pales­tini­ans in Europe Con­fer­ence is a group spon­sored by the UK-based Pales­tin­ian Return Cen­tre, a Pales­tine advo­ca­cy group with ties to both Hamas and the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB). Its recent­ly-elect­ed leader Amin Abou Rashed has also served as leader of the now-defunct Al-Aqsa Foun­da­tion, the Dutch mem­ber of the Union of Good (UOG), a world­wide coali­tion of char­i­ties that in 2000 was des­ig­nat­ed by the Unit­ed States as a financ­ing enti­ty for Hamas.

Pri­or report­ing by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) about the Euro­pean Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture has included:

• A May 2021 report that UK Labour Mus­lim Net­work had host­ed a “Vir­tu­al Iftar” fea­tur­ing pro-Hamas activists and GMB leaders.

• A May 2012 report that a vir­tu­al GMB schol­ars con­fer­ence brought togeth­er a UN-sanc­tioned ter­ror­ism financier, GMB lead­ers, and a British orga­ni­za­tion known to be pro-Hamas.

• A May 2021 report that an Irish MP and a mem­ber of the Israeli Par­lia­ment were among the pan­elists of an online round­table on the top­ic of Jerusalem that was orga­nized by a coali­tion of UK Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and pro-Hamas groups.