UK MP: Hamas has a legal right to resist

British Member of Parliament, Crispin Blunt, yesterday warned the UK against proscribing the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, saying it will have “a terrible chilling effect on putting anything into Gaza”.

As the besieged enclave is governed by Hamas, banning the movement would mean the government could not deal with it, and therefore could not provide aid to the millions of Palestinians in dire need in Gaza.

Blunt also suggested that Hamas had “under international law, a legal right to resist”. He explained, however, that the weapons used by the Palestinians were “unlawful because they are untargeted and they are indiscriminate”.

READ: How will Britain’s designation of Hamas affect Palestinians and British policy?

“My own personal position is that the two-state solution is long gone. That in the end, the only way this is going to be resolved is actually by the people coming together and us enabling that to happen, helping it to happen, and I fear that this measure today does precisely the opposite,” Blunt said during a debate on the British government’s proposal to designate Hamas a “terrorist group”.

Last week the British government announced plans to label Hamas as a terrorist organisation in its entirety, it had previously proscribed the movement’s military wing the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will push for the change in parliament arguing that it is not possible to distinguish between Hamas’ political and military wings.