Jews protest launch of Hamas ‘propaganda’ book at London School of Economics
Author of ‘Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters’ falsely claims terror group mainly attacked military targets on Oct. 7, 2023, is unfairly ‘vilified’ by mainstream media
London’s Jewish community rallied on Monday against a London School of Economics (LSE) book launch that has been accused of providing a platform for the Hamas terror group.
About 100 members of the Jewish community took part in the protest at the prestigious university, where an event was taking place by authors Helena Cobban, a British-American international relations writer, and Jordanian-American journalist Rami George Khouri on their book “Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters.”
A separate, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel counter-demonstration was also held in support of the book launch.
Several members who attended staged a walkout during the Q&A part of the event, the UK Jewish News reported.
At the panel, Cobban argued that Hamas, which actively calls for the destruction of Israel and has carried out hundreds of deadly attacks against civilians, had been “systematically misrepresented” in history.
Cobban charged that the mainstream media “actively puts out falsehoods to deliberately misrepresent the movement and its actions.”
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“This suppression of vital information about Hamas and the other resistance movements has been responsible for a lot of public ignorance we now see,” she said.
“It is important to note, both by the recent Israeli military investigation and many Israeli investigative journalists, that a lot of what Hamas did on 7 October was attack military targets,” Cobban falsely claimed.
Cobban and Khouri’s book argued that the terror group has been subjected to “intense vilification” that has amplified since its brutal onslaught on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in southern Israel and took another 251 hostages.
Several military probes into the massacre that took place in the south found that terrorists invaded in multiple waves along communities near the border, where they massacred, brutalized, and kidnapped residents over several hours while security services were in disarray.
Cobban denied Monday that she tried to “whitewash” Hamas’s crimes, telling the panel, “I want to underline that I am not saying for one moment that Hamas has not committed violations of international humanitarian law. I know they did.”
The authors of the book were challenged by the audience, with one attendee stating, “Your twisted views of demonization and vilification in relation to Hamas is a clear attempt to exonerate a terrorist organization, to depict Hamas as innocent and as being unfairly portrayed and misunderstood.”
Panelist host Professor Michael Mason, director of LSE’s Middle East Center, also passed criticism of the book, arguing that “Throughout the book, war crimes and atrocities are almost only attributed to Israel.”
“Given this moral one-sidedness, why would any reasonable person not conclude on reading the book that it whitewashes the indiscriminate and grievous violence on the October 7 attacks?” he asked.
Other panelists at the event concurred with Cobban’s position.
“I argue that the labeling of Hamas as terrorists has devastating effects. It erases the historical context of the attacks. It facilitates the dehumanization of not just Hamas, but all Gazans,” King College’s Professor Jeroen Gunning said.
Dr. Catherine Charrett, a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Westminster, praised the book for putting Hamas’s war against Israel in the context of an “anti-colonial struggle, such as the Tet Offensive in north Vietnam, which led to American withdrawal in the county.”
Hosting such an event is ‘crossing a line’
London’s Jewish community protested outside the building where the event was held, blasting Israeli music and waving Israeli flags. Counter-protesters showed up, many of them covering their faces with Palestinian keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags.
Romi Harush, an Israeli masters student studying at LSE, told Channel 12 news that demonstrations outside deterred people from attending the book launch.
Amir Dotan, another Israeli student, told Channel 12 that he showed Hamas documents encouraging the murder of Jews to bystanders watching the protesters.
“Most of them appreciated the information and thanked me that I shared this and educated them; some preferred to end the conversation politely and not listen to my position,” he said.
The students said that they were most disappointed in the university, which put out a statement asserting the event would go ahead despite criticism, citing its commitment to “free speech and freedom of expression.”
“In the end, to host an event called ‘understanding Hamas’ is crossing a line. It’s beyond understanding Gazan residents, or the Palestinians; it is understanding Hamas, a terror group that has nothing to do with understanding, and because of this we organized the demonstration,” Harush said.
Last week, Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely sent a letter to the school saying, “There can be no place for platforming Hamas propaganda.”
In her letter, Hotovely said she was “deeply concerned that the event is providing a platform for propaganda — a terror organization proscribed under United Kingdom law.
“I worry that promoting such a book, which sympathizes with and justifies the survival and existence of Hamas, will only serve to grow support for a brutal terror organization among your students and beyond.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism organization called the event “an outrageous apology for terror.”
“This is not about truth and open debate: it is propaganda that knowingly or otherwise serves the cause of genocidal antisemitic Islamist violence,” the group’s spokesperson said.
