Well, the main story we're talking about on Talk Drve today is Hamas using the European Convention on Human Rights to challenge its prescription as a terrorist organization in the UK. One of the barristers behind that at Garden Court Chambers is Frank McInness who joins me now. Frank, good evening.
Good evening, KJ Martat. How are you? Um, tell me uh Frank, I I don't want to mischaracterize this.
Uh, this case to me anyway, and tell me if I'm wrong, is specifically saying that Hamas should not be prescribed as a terrorist organization in the UK. Yes, that's right. It's not a case yet, is it?
It's an application and it's for the Secretary of State to decide it one way or the other. And if she decides that she doesn't want to deprescribe, then it becomes a case if my client Hamas decides to appeal that decision to the uh judiciary. Have you there?
We hear about barristers taking cases on the taxi rank and so on, especially in criminal cases. Have you decided to take this case? What do you mean?
Has it been your decision to take this case? You you've been instructed and you've decided to take the case. Who else would have decided to take the case?
I don't understand. Of course, I decide what cases I take. How do you sleep at night?
Um, that's a baffling question because I mean, do you want me to answer that question? I will if you want. Yeah.
I mean, Hamas are terrorists, aren't they? It's so unbelievably clear. All right.
So, I'm going to answer your question. You shouldn't have asked it, but I will answer your question. I You shouldn't have asked it.
We have this thing called free speech in this country, so I can ask whatever I like. Perhaps you can answer it. I I will answer the question.
It's just you're talking over me. Did you want to hear my answer? Yeah.
All right. Um I need you to listen to my answer very carefully because what you've done is extremely dangerous and you shouldn't have asked that question. All right.
So, please do listen to my response and when I'm done, I'll say next question. All right. You have just asked me how do I sleep at night?
And what you're trying to do by saying that is you're trying to fix me. You're trying to associate me with my client. There is a very well representing them, Frank.
You're representing them. You've decided to I can This is a conversation. I'm not going to be told whether I can talk or not talk.
You've decided to represent them. So, you've invited me to talk over because you're afraid of what I have to say. Is that right?
I'm not afraid of what you have to say, but you're saying that I'm associating you with them. You seem afraid. You seem afraid.
Afraid. We're having a conversation and I'm asking you how well at the at the bar we tend to let each other speak. Is that not the convention?
I'm not a barristister. I'm an interviewer and you're saying that I'm associating you with your client. You have told me that you have decided to represent Hamas.
They are an unspeakably horrific and dreadful organization. So yes, I am. So yes, I am associating you with them because you've decided to represent them.
Okay. Um I think you might be hearing from the police. I mean, I don't I don't know, but it sounds like you might because the point is that um you know, the low point of this on this side of the Irish Sea was Boris Johnson and Pretty Patel using the phrase activist lawyers.
They knew what they were doing. They were using it to stoke anti-migrant racism and then a man showed up with a knife at the law firm calling by name for a sister who I know because they put a target on his back and the low the low point on uh the the Irish side of the Irish Sea is Patukan of course, right? the a British MP stood up in parliament and said he's just like his clients.
He Patnukan represented members of the provisional IRA which is another prescribed organization and three weeks later Patukan was of course murdered in front of his family by loyalist paramilitaries who we now know had handlers in the British establishment. What you doing? You're playing the same.
Don't talk over me. Let's talk about harass. I'll talk over if you want.
No, excuse me. You're playing the same game. You put I'm not playing any games.
I'm not playing any games. Put a target on my back. I'm not putting a target on his back.
I am asking you. No, I don't. You owe me an apology.
No, I don't. I'm asking you why you decided, why have you decided to represent Hamas? Next question.
Why have you decided to represent Hamas? Did you not hear me say next question? I'm not answering your question.
You're not answering the question about why you've decided to represent Hamas. You're trying to make this a story about me. Talk about the application.
You have decided to represent Hamas. I think people are interested as to why you've decided to do that because they're trying to make me the story. They're a terrorist organization.
You're deliberately putting a target on my back. There are negative consequences. I'm asking you if there are negative consequences.
I'm holding you personally. I'm asking you a perfectly relevant and reasonable question, which is why have you decided to represent Hamas when you did not have to do that? Let's talk about how there is a crisis of Zionism because it's committing a genocide.
Do you agree that Israel is committing a genocide? No. So if I'm right that it is and if South Africa's government is right that it is, that would make you a genocide denier, would it?
Is that what you are? You deny genocide, do you? We've gone very very quickly from me being from me asking you a perfectly reasonable question which you're refusing to answer to you as alleging that I'm a genocide denier, which I would argue is defamatory.
You literally denied the genocide. It's not defamatory. I'm not denying it.
I'm not denying it. It is not a genocide. Yeah.
So if I said if I'm right actually not well well you're tying yourself up in knots. I would ask the question again why have you decided to represent Hamas? Well there's lots of ways to answer that question.
Uh the obvious answer is to say that we're witnessing a terminal crisis of Zionism and that Israel is a partite state is state is collapsing in front of our eyes and that raises difficult questions for the secretary of state about what will happen if and when South Africa Israel goes the way of South Africa. South African apartate of course collapsed in 1994 and as the Irish example right the um provisional IRA was of course an illegal organization and yet its political wing started winning elections in the South African example the British government of course called for Mandela to be executed that's what they wanted and he's now regarded as a hero right so he was maligned as a terrorist and whatever people think of Hamas and of course a lot of people will oppose what Hamas stand for and what they've done the point about this application is to say you don't have to support a prescribed organization to think that it shouldn't be prescribed. If people want to read the arguments that the the application is based on, they can go to the website that Perhaps you can tell us why you don't think Hamas should be a prescribed organization.
The documents have been uploaded to. So, um hamascase. com has all of the pleadings if people are interested.
Okay. Perhaps you can summarize them for us now and tell us your belief why you don't think Hamas should be a prescribed organization. Well, it's not about my belief.
I'm a lawyer instructed to make some legal arguments, which is what I've done along with my colleagues. uh and uh it's not possible to understand the application without understanding the broader context. It's as I've said we're witnessing the collapse of an apartite regime and that that means that extraordinary things will happen in those extraordinary circumstances and that's why my client has taken this extraordinary step to approach the British home secretary and to say look um there are a number of reasons why the terrorism act should no longer be applied to uh to this organization.
There are a number of people who will find it absolutely extraordinary that there is anyone who believes and anyone who would represent an organization who is putting forward the argument legally that Hamas isn't a terrorist organization and shouldn't be prescribed. That's interesting. So you're saying that you think Hamas shouldn't be entitled to legal representation?
I'm saying that they're a terrorist organization who have done absolutely horrendous things and I don't want them anywhere near my country. I'm happy that they are prescribed. I'm happy that uh there are document there's documented evidence of what they have done.
Uh and also if you don't want to be a prescribed organization, why not I would say to Hamas release the 59 hostages who are currently in Gaza. So you're saying that people who take hostages should be prescribed organizations. I'm saying that Hamases should be a prescribed organization because it has taken hostages.
I haven't mentioned anybody else or any other uh or Israel or any other aspect of this. I'm talking about Hamas itself. I'm not talking about what a boutery.
I'm talking about Hamas, which is a terrorist organization that I think should be prescribed. Well, look, the point Well, okay, that's interesting. Uh, your um the point is that the definition of terrorism in the terrorism act 2000 is very broad and basically almost any organization that's using violence to to commit a political purpose in advance to advance a political purpose is is caught by that definition.
Right? So, the Ukrainian forces in their war against Russia, they would be caught by the definition. Israel, of course, be caught by the definition.
So what what that means legally? You've also said that the British armed forces would be covered by the definition. So it is the contention of your action that the British armed forces should be deemed a terrorist organization.
Is that correct? No, you you've misunderstood what I'm saying. Explain that to me.
Yeah, I'm trying to. So what's what this is my point, right? The definition of terrorism in the act is extremely broad and most organizations like the ones you just mentioned, the ones I was mentioning are caught by it.
And what that means is the secretary of state has an extremely broad discretion to decide who she wants to add to that list. Of course, this organization, the political wing of Hamas was added to the list of prescribed organizations uh in 2021. The military wing was added uh more than two decades ago.
And so, because that discretion is so broad, what we're saying is that there are um there are ways to legally challenge the exercise of the discretion in this case. And all we've done is to set out some um entirely sensible, thoughtful, well-reasoned arguments about why the time has come for the Secretary of State to revisit the decision of her uh predecessor Pretty Patel who was of course um politically compromised and highly criticized for her dealings with the apartheite state of Israel and to um to consider of course the position in international law which confirms that people like Palestinians who are under occupation. I mean this is a settled position in international law that people under occupation have a right to use armed force to resist.
So Palestinians have a right to Am I am I getting it clear and tell me if I'm wrong that you believe that Hamas have a right to use armed force to represent their position? You keep asking me what I believe, which again is it's not quite as um blatant and disgusting as your previous question, but what's interesting about Well, I mean, you're representing these people and you've chosen to do so. So, presumably it has something to do with what you believe.
Do you not understand how the legal system works? Yes, I do. And I understand that you didn't have to take the case.
If I were a lawyer and if someone came to me, I would say there's not in a million years would I represent Hamas. They are a disgusting, horrendous, anti-semitic, dreadful terrorist organization. That's what I would say.
You didn't say that. And I'm very interested as to why. Because you're trying to make a story about me instead of this important application because you're not a serious journalist.
Is that right? The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. So what the Jews hide behind trees and stones and each tree and stone will say oh Muslim oh servant of Allah there is a Jew behind me come and kill him except for the for a specific tree which is the tree of Jews.
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. That is what uh Hamas believe and I would not represent an organization that believe that and you have chosen to. Where's that quote from?
That the first one is from the uh Hamas Charter Article 7 and the second one is from Hamas Charter Article 13. Which uh which year is that? Charter past.
Uh I don't have it in front of me. You don't know, do you? You're out of your depth, aren't you?
Out of my depth, right? Uh well, I'll tell you what, is honey. You're quoting you're quoting a document from 1988, right?
And and and it's clear that that document is uh has been widely criticized and it's addressed. Hamas doesn't want to kill Jews. Then Hamas doesn't want to destroy the state of Israel.
Is that what you're saying? Let me just let me just respond. Um so that document refreshes the 1988 charge.
I know you don't know what you're talking about, which is fine. You're allowed to be a bit out of your depths. There's 600 pages of uh supporting evidence um in this application and you've not had a chance to read it.
I of course have worked on it extensively. So it's fair enough that there's an asymmetry here. Like I'm not trying to trick you.
It's just you're you're quoting a document that's more than 30 years after let me tell you what was by let me tell you what the Hamas senior leader is hierleing your viewersh misleading your viewers. Have you have you read? I don't think any of my viewers are under any misapprehension about what Hamas stands for.
I don't think you're under any misapprehension. You just misled them. Did you didn't tell them about the 2017 charter?
Why didn't you? Cuz you don't know what you're talking about. In on the It's okay to admit that you're ignorant.
That's fine. On the on the 26th of October, the Hamas senior leader Ismael Haneier commenting on the loss of civilian life in Gaza said, "The blood of the women, children, and elderly, we are the ones who need this blood so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit. " We also have Gazi Hammed on the 24th of October 2023 saying that he would repeat the 7th of October attacks time and again until Israel is annihilated.
I don't see a huge difference between that and what was said in 1988 I must say. What became of ishia? Well, we know what we know what became of him because Israel assassinated him.
All right. Um the all of these things are addressed extensively in the application. Um it's of course correct that uh Hamas should have to answer to things that they say and do and they do extensively in in the application.
I encourage people to read it. It will um cast light on the subject in a way that you're not even pretending to do. You're not trying to have a a dialogue with me about what's actually happening.
You're talking across me and trying to How would you how would you characterize what Hamas is doing if not terrorism? How would you characterize it? Well, the whole point that's being made in the argument in the application is that the definition of terrorism is extremely broad.
And so basically any organization that thinks that their strategy is best advanced by the use of arms struggle will be caught by that definition. That's essential part of the whole application. Does that make sense?
It does make perfect sense to me. But what I would ar what I would wonder is how you can argue that Hamas isn't a terrorist organization if the definition is so broad. Well, by that logic, Israel is a terrorist organization.
Do you agree? No. Well, think about it.
Come on, man. Think it through. If you agree the definition is very very broad then the secretary of state could say right clearly it applies to Israel but she said they're doing a genocide but you're arguing the counter I'm going to I'm going to say that the IDF is a terrorist organization.
She could do that if she wanted. She literally could. Why shouldn't she?
They're doing a genocide. Why shouldn't she? It's not a genocide.
It is factually not a genocide. Well, the South African government, the Irish government, the Spanish government, Belgian government disagrees with you. Oh, you know better than them.
Do you? Okay. Yeah, they're they're they're wrong.
They're wrong. All right. Who I mean, who asked you?
What do you know? You obviously don't. you're out of your depths, like you don't know what you're talking about.
I think that, you know, the phenomenal submissions that we saw in the South African genocide case are far more persuasive than any of the sort of ridiculous talking points that you're propagating here. You It's okay, mate. You're you're allowed to not know what you're talking about, but why don't you just admit it to your viewers?
You don't know what you're talking about. You're on your left. Everyone can see it.
Frank, thanks for your help. Uh that's Frank McInness there. He's a barristister at Garden Court Chambers.
He's one of the lawyers behind the case that is arguing that Hamas are not terrorists and should be deprescribed. What do you think of what he has to say?
