Ibrahim Hewitt responds to the libellous accusations made against him by the infamous Islamophobic journalist Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph.
In an article published on the Telegraph website on Sunday 19 July, Andrew Gilligan made some erroneous claims against a number of British Muslim organisations and individuals, myself included and not for the first time. On this occasion he has tried to discredit Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn by “exposing” his links to “extremists”; no prizes for guessing who his examples of the latter include.
It appears to be part of an extreme right-wing campaign to dissuade Labour Party members and supporters from voting for Corbyn in the leadership election. Two articles and an editorial, no less, with a similar line of attack appeared in the Sun and the Times on 25 July; I have responded to them elsewhere.
I hold no brief to defend Jeremy Corbyn. I believe that he is an honest politician, an excellent constituency MP and a genuinely nice guy, I also know that he can stick up for himself. I am honoured to have him as a very good friend. However, I would like to point out that one of the claims made by Gilligan is extremely misleading and prompts one to ask whether he writes such things in order to mislead his readers deliberately. If so, why?
Jeremy Corbyn’s terrorist “friends”
According to Gilligan, “Mr Corbyn… has taken thousands of pounds in gifts from organisations closely linked to the terror group Hamas, whose operatives he once described as ‘friends’.” Anyone who watched the recent Channel 4 interview by Krishnan Guru-Murthy will know the context in which the “friends” quote was made; I shan’t deal with that here.
To back up his “gifts” allegation, Gilligan says that, “In February 2013 [Corbyn and his wife] travelled to Gaza thanks to a £2,800 gift from Interpal, a British charity banned by the US government as ‘part of the funding network of Hamas’ and as a terrorist organisation in its own right.”
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
In fact, Jeremy Corbyn visited Gaza at Interpal’s expense as part of the charity’s “bearing witness” programme so that he could see first-hand the work that it does in the besieged enclave.
There was no “gift” from Interpal and he wasn’t the only MP to go on that trip: the then Liberal Democrat MP for Brent Central Sarah Teather was also there, as was Philip Hollobone, the Conservative MP for Kettering; all went at Interpal’s expense. Any reasonable person would agree that such extra detail puts a different slant on the trip to that which Andrew Gilligan intends to portray.
Interpal is a British charity, and neither a “terrorist organisation” nor a funder of Hamas; the British government knows that and so do the Americans; the designation was made at the behest of the Israeli government in 2003 by a compliant Bush administration. No credible evidence has ever been put forward by Interpal’s accusers. The amazing thing is that the Telegraph itself has faced legal action in the past from Interpal for making similar claims and apologised. I would also point out – although Mr Gilligan will be well aware of the fact anyway – that it is well-documented that the Charity Commission asked the US authorities years ago to provide evidence to support its statements concerning Interpal, and none has ever been forthcoming.
Indeed, although Gilligan implies that Interpal is only “allowed to operate in the UK after claiming it has broken its links with Hamas, a claim accepted by the Charity Commission”, such “links” have never been proven and Interpal’s continued charitable status has never been conditional on breaking them. “Gilligan would be well aware of this if he had taken the trouble to read the various reports published by the Charity Commission concerning Interpal,” wrote Interpal’s lawyer to the editor of the Telegraph in February this year, “not to mention if he had bothered to contact the charity before publication.” At no time has the Charity Commission ever asserted or concluded that Interpal has or had “links to Hamas” (it has not, and Interpal does not). “Nor, therefore, has the Commission ever made severance of those ‘links’ a condition of Interpal’s continued operation in the UK; and even if there had been any such ‘condition’ (which there was not) Interpal’s trustees have not conducted themselves in any way that would have flouted it.”
Interpal and Hamas
Gilligan alleges that one of my fellow trustees of Interpal, Dr Essam Mustafa, was pictured with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh “on an official visit in Gaza… clapping and singing an anti-Israeli song in praise of Hamas’s military wing”. Dr Mustafa, he claims, “also paid his respects at the shrine for Ahmed Said Khalil, the head of the al-Qassam Brigades killed in an Israeli airstrike” and “is a former member of Hamas’s executive committee.”
This is not the first time that Andrew Gilligan has made the same, tired allegations. “Dr Mustafa is not,” his editor was told by our lawyer, “and never has been, a member of Hamas or of any terrorist organisation, whether as a ‘senior executive’ or in any other capacity. Equally, Interpal is not, and has never been, a terrorist organisation and none of the Trustees are or ever have been involved in or supported terrorism, whether in the form of Hamas or any other organisation or individuals.” Does the truth matter to the newspaper and Gilligan? Apparently not.
The so-called “shrine” was the remains of the vehicle in which Khalil was murdered by the Israelis, along with a painting placed in the entrance of the immigration hall at the Rafah Border Crossing. It would be unusual for anyone entering the Gaza Strip not to be intrigued by the display and go to look at it, which is what Dr Mustafa did.
Astonishingly, Gilligan did not bother to contact Dr Mustafa or anyone else at Interpal prior to publication, in order to give them an opportunity to respond to these allegations. Instead, the Telegraph has continued to publish articles replete with a number of extremely serious allegations, even potential libels, the publication of which will undoubtedly have caused, and will continue to cause, very serious, yet wholly unjustified, harm to the charity’s and trustees’ reputations.
Gilliganesque journalism
Gilligan has a bit of a track record in this respect. “Our clients,” Interpal’s lawyer told the Telegraph in response to an earlier Gilligan article, “can only assume that Mr Gilligan simply had no interest in ensuring that the article was properly researched or accurate, and was certainly not interested in letting the facts, or the basic tenets of responsible journalism, get in the way of his spurious thesis of linking our clients and others as part of a Muslim Brotherhood ‘network’. Indeed, this blinkered, pre-judgmental approach is exemplified by the fact that, in order to bolster the spurious premise of the article, it describes Interpal’s offices as being ‘very close’ to the buildings said to be occupied by organisations alleged to be linked to the Brotherhood, when in fact Interpal’s offices are more than three miles away.”
Although Gilligan makes great play of the fact that Dr Essam Mustafa was pictured over a year ago at a public function in Gaza, alongside senior Hamas official and ex-Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, as it happens – and as Dr Mustafa would have made clear had Gilligan made any effort to contact him prior to publication – on the occasions in question, the Interpal trustee was in Gaza not in that role but in his capacity as coordinator of the Miles of Smiles convoys.
“These convoys provide essential humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza, and are not only entirely lawful but are supported by numerous NGOs, the Red Crescent, UNRWA and other international bodies; even the Israeli Defence Force has been quoted as applauding the initiative as a non-political and straightforward mechanism for the delivery of aid.” It is in this capacity that Dr Mustafa has indeed met, in public, with Mr Haniyeh who was, as the Telegraph will be well-aware, the de facto Prime Minister of Gaza and who in that capacity has met numerous senior political figures from around the world, including a number of British MPs, MEPs and members of the House of Lords.
The public functions in question were hosted by the administrative authority in Gaza to express the gratitude of the Gazan people for the humanitarian relief provided by the convoys, and to celebrate their success. To suggest, as the article clearly did, that Dr Mustafa’s attendance at such events demonstrates involvement in or support for terrorism (whether on the part of Dr Mustafa or the other Trustees) is simply misconceived. I would also add, for the sake of completeness, that while I have no intention of descending into a detailed debate about Hamas or the boundary between its so-called political and military “wings”, the fact is that, other than for the purposes of Europe-wide asset freezing measures, the political wing of Hamas is not proscribed under UK law and there can be no suggestion that Dr Mustafa’s attendance at these events was in any way unlawful.
MEMO, Interpal and the Muslim Brotherhood
Gilligan’s latest article then points out that Jeremy Corbyn, “is due to speak at a conference organised by Middle East Monitor (MEMO), another group based at Crown House [which Gilligan alleges is a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain] with strong sympathies for Hamas.” He goes on to question my role as MEMO’s “senior editor” by placing my job title in inverted commas. Perhaps I should start referring to him as a “journalist”. I am, Gilligan states baldly, “an extremist” based on something I wrote more than 20 years ago; oh, and I am the “chairman of Interpal, the Hamas-linked charity”. So there you go; I must be an extremist, even though he and his pro-Israel soulmates are the only ones who make such a link, but Muslims are getting used to being defined by others, however erroneously.
He also argues that MEMO has “organised several meetings featuring Hamas leaders and terrorist sympathisers”. In response to that, it is worth repeating what a senior Metropolitan Police Special Branch officer once said in relation to similar accusations against Interpal: “The absence of any police involvement is hugely significant.”
In another Andrew Gilligan article published by the Telegraph on 29 November 2014, under the headline “’Terror link’ charities get British millions in Gift Aid”, he was again highly defamatory of Interpal and its trustees alleging, as it would have been understood and was no doubt intended to do, that they are are at least to be strongly suspected of involvement in, and support for, terrorism. This article paid lip service – though no more than that – to Interpal’s denial of “funding terrorism” (unlike the article above, which did not even bother to do that) – although once again Mr Gilligan did not trouble to contact Interpal before publishing this article. However, reference to such denial will have done little to detract from the overall defamatory sting of the article, any more than will the reference to the Charity Commission “not investigating” – which was also highly misleading given that, in truth, the Commission has indeed “investigated” Interpal on several occasions in light of the (baseless) US-designation.
As well as being potentially libellous of the Interpal Trustees as a whole, this article is particularly defamatory of myself; I am again labelled unequivocally as an “extremist”. In the context of an article linking Interpal with terrorism, this epithet will clearly have been understood, and will no doubt have been intended, to mean that I support terrorism and terrorist atrocities. This is wholly untrue.
To make matters worse – and no doubt in an attempt to reinforce Gilligan’s aim of depicting me in as “extremist” a light as possible – I am mischaracterised in the article as a Holocaust denier and/or that I somehow seek to dismiss or even to condone the annihilation of millions of Jews by the Nazis in the Second World War. The implication is that I am anti-Semitic. Once again, that is a grotesque mischaracterisation of my position.
In fact – and as I would have pointed out, had Mr Gilligan troubled to contact me before publication – I most certainly acknowledge, and condemn unequivocally, the Nazi persecution and massacre of the Jews (and innumerable others) and have never sought to do otherwise. I can only assume that Mr Gilligan has simply never read the document – co-written by me some 25 years ago – from which his quote emanates and in which I refer expressly to the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews. I believe firmly in the equality of all human beings, regardless of race or ethnic background and can trace this back to a visit to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany as a young man in the Army Reserve; that had a huge impact on my worldview which has stuck with me.
Overall, it looks like Andrew Gilligan has no other purpose but to discredit myself and the charities with which I am involved as part of what looks increasingly like his personal crusade against all British Muslims, not just the “Islamists” who seem to be a particular bugbear. Such is the state of modern “journalism”. Quite apart from the inaccuracies, as a member of the National Union of Journalists myself, his apparent lack of ethics are a source of great concern. Is Andrew Gilligan indeed misleading his readers deliberately? If so, aren’t we entitled to ask why?
Ibrahim Hewitt is the Senior Editor of the Middle East Monitor and the Chair of UK-based charity Interpal.
You can follow Ibrahim Hewitt on @ibrahimhewitt56
