The Australian government has said it planned to list the whole of the Palestinian movement Hamas to its list of outlawed “terrorist” organisations.Australia had previously listed Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades military wing as a “terror” group in 2003, but the new designation which will come into force in April, will list the organisation in its entirety, including its political wing.“The views of Hamas and the violent extremist groups listed today are deeply disturbing, and there is no place in Australia for their hateful ideologies,” said Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews.The designation will place restrictions on financing or providing other support to Hamas – with certain offences carrying a 25-year prison sentence.“It is vital that our laws target not only terrorist acts and terrorists, but also the organisations that plan, finance and carry out these acts,” Andrews said.
Hamas denounced the move on its website:
The Islamic Resistance Movement " Hamas " deplored the Australian government's move to classify the movement as a "terrorist" organization, according to Minister of Home Affairs Karen Andrews, expressing her rejection of this designation.
The movement stressed that this trend of the Australian government contradicts international law, which guarantees the right of peoples to resist the occupier...And called on the Australian government to reverse this decision, which harms the reputation of the Australian state, in its care and respect for human rights, and its recognition of international laws and norms.
At the very same time, the Hamas website has an article praising their late engineer who pioneered designing missiles aimed at civilians - the very definition of terrorism:
The sixteenth of February coincides with the nineteenth anniversary of the martyrdom of the Qassam leader and the first missile maker, Nidal Farhat, who destroyed the occupation’s beds in his life, and paved the way for generations after him to humiliate the occupation and disgrace its face.
He grew up loving the homeland and sacrificing for the sake of God, as his family home was a shelter for the resistance fighters and wanted people of the occupation army, and a starting point for carrying out military operations against the occupation forces.
In the early nineties, he joined the Al-Qassam Brigades to be the right-hand man of the martyred General Imad Aqel, whom he used to shelter in his home during the period of his pursuit.
Commander Farhat spent most of his time in order to manufacture a weapon that would be a strong deterrent to the occupation, so he came up with the idea of making a missile that would be launched from the Palestinian territories towards the occupied territories.
The "political wing" of Hamas does't even try to hide its support for attacking civilians.
Notice also that to Hamas, Gaza isn't occupied - Haifa is.
