Why I wrote an expert report supporting the case to deproscribe Hamas in the UK
As a scholar of state violence, a psychologist and an anti-racist community activist, I will chart why I supported the legal bid to deproscribe Hamas through an expert report, and why I vehemently oppose the proscription of Palestine Action not least on free speech grounds.
When I was an adolescent, a man attacked me on the streets of Berlin. 'You're dirt,' he shouted. 'Get out of Germany.' This act, violent and racist, was undeniably political.
I begin with this anecdote because we've always lived in violent times. The ongoing Gaza genocide is a stark reminder of this. But as racist attacks reveal, not all political violence is equal.
Scholars have tried to carve out a distinction between everyday, white racist attacks and 'terrorism'. But any distinction - of intentions, targets or organisational ties - falters under scrutiny; the racist underbelly of counterterrorism is on full display.
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Some scholars note that the distinction between terrorism and racist hate crimes is ultimately a matter of direction. The violence of the majority against a minority is a hate crime; the violence of a minority against the majority is terrorism.
Racism is encoded in the logic of counterterrorism. In the Global North, this privileges some bodies over others. Hate versus terrorism: the legal, social and political consequences are enormous.
Racist framework
The racism of terrorism frameworks is certainly true for Gaza as well. Terrorism has always been a matter of Palestinian resistance, not Israeli violence. The Carter Centre charts how attacks from Gaza are directly correlated to Israel's illegal land, air and naval blockade. The more Israel suffocated Gaza's provisions, the more Hamas retaliated.
Terrorism does the heavy lifting to render makeshift missiles more violent than the ethnic cleansing of a barricaded population. The 'war on terror' has always been a racist project that privileges whiteness - including Israelis - and renders some lives more grievable than others.
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This matters for us in the Global North. As I explain in my own research, the language of terrorism plays a profound moral role in differentiating between good and evil in a secular-liberal society.
Indeed, as I suspect will soon be quite relevant, one argument to maintain the proscription of Hamas is to uphold existing security logics. The UK needs to proscribe Palestinian resistance, not to discourage the public from showing support, but to maintain an ability to point elsewhere in the world and say: 'That's true evil.' This then justifies the relentless expansion of the military-industrial complex.
I have lost count of the parents I've had to console, whose children have been punished for speaking about Palestine in school
Some hear this critique as a call: if counterterrorism dehumanises some and privileges others, can we even the playing field? Should we not include Israel, Zionist attackers and more white people under the terrorist label?
The hyper-securitised liberal impulse in society, to maintain the image of a 'post-racial' order, is to make everything about terrorism, including violence towards women. But this does not counteract the essential issue with terrorism legislation: its tendency to render some people's violence more blameworthy than others.
The legal application to deproscribe Hamas does not make a case to abolish the category of terrorism. But its racist and moral implications are important for the purposes of this article - and they matter for mental health settings.
Years ago, I wrote about how expanding terrorism legislation would cause widespread anxiety. This is truer today than ever before.
The genocide in Gaza is increasingly revealing the lengths to which the UK is shaping its security policies to police dissent. Since the genocide began, anti-racist organisations have been dealing with the fallout of censorship.
Epidemic of repression
I have lost count of the parents I've had to console, whose children have been punished for speaking about Palestine in school; or the mental health professionals who have been referred to the Health and Care Professions Council for sharing posts about Palestine on social media; or the students who are going through hearings after mobilising for Palestine on campus.
We are facing an epidemic of repression, and the mental health implications are devastating. It is a climate of suffocation, anxiety and paranoia.
Among the many people outraged by the Gaza genocide - a significant portion of the British population, if polls are any indication - few are spared the anxiety associated with sharing that feeling in their place of work or education.
A British Islamic Medical Association survey of 651 healthcare professionals and students, conducted in late 2023, found that the overwhelming majority (93 percent) felt silenced or restricted in discussing Palestine at work.
At best, we're seeing denial of the Palestinian cause - and at worst, explicit support for Israel during its most vicious, genocidal phase. I have supported mental health professionals whose management inserted 'Hamas' into a conversation to shun all mention of the ongoing genocide.
Just as there is a growing political impulse to make everything about terrorism, there is a similar impulse to make everything about mental health
'Hamas supporter' is not simply an accusation levied against those who proclaim solidarity with Palestine, often racialised Muslims. It is an actual, material threat because of the group's proscription. The proscription-turned-weapon of 'Hamas supporter' is violence upon violence, for which we have yet to account.
As one might imagine, none of this is conducive to healing in mental health settings. Attending to the distress of those who are vilified for their Palestine solidarity is insufficient. Just as there is a growing political impulse to make everything about terrorism, there is a similar impulse to make everything about mental health.
But the widespread anxiety around speaking up for Palestine cannot be treated on its own. It belongs to material conditions whereby people may indeed lose their jobs, education or freedom for 'recklessly' supporting Palestinian resistance.
This is the violence of proscription, and it is the key element that ties the politics of violence to the politics of distress. There is no way around this violence outside of deproscription.
Honest conversation
The purpose of my submission was to summarise a simple idea, repeated by the great scholars of the dispossessed: if the colonial relationship to an indigenous population is necessarily marked by domination, its methodology always implies a psychological regime of humiliation.
From the Zionist founders to the Israeli soldiers 'breaking the silence', we can see that humiliation and dehumanisation are essential psychological tactics of the Zionist project.
Western psychology plays a significant role in legitimising colonial projects. In the case of Palestine, it does so by depoliticising violence, making it a matter of 'conflict' that arises from clashing identities: Israeli and Palestinian. As such, as I explain in my submission, there is little in the discipline that deals with contention to Zionist occupation.
Muslim scholar Omar ibn Abdulaziz once advised that the best way to fight sedition was with justice. Justice will always be the most supreme form of therapy. As it stands, because of proscription, we're barely allowed to talk about the injustices of the settler-colonial occupation - let alone imagine a future without it.
This must change. For us to imagine a world where healing is possible, we must begin with an honest conversation about violence. The security state, the 'war on terror' and proscription are not the answers. If we want to heal, we must move differently.
Like any good therapy session, this must all begin with an honest conversation. This can never happen with proscription in place. The politics of violence and healing go together; if we truly want a better world, we need to understand them both.
Nothing in this article should be understood as inviting or otherwise encouraging readers to support, or express support for, Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah (Hamas).
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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