Hamas Member's Son Helped Write UK Labour Motion against Israel

A Hamas official's son — who has himself expressed support for Hamas in the past — has been revealed to be one of the lead drafters of the UK Labour Party Conference motion calling for sanctions against Israel and declaring it apartheid, according to an investigation by the NGO Israel Advocacy Movement (IAM).

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, general secretary of the Arab Labour Group Omar Mofeed — Allegedly the son of Hamas official Dr. Mufid Al-Mokhalalati — was acknowledged as a drafter of a Labour conference motion, along with another group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which he is also a director.

Omar Mofeed is the son of Dr. Mufid Al-Mukhalalati, who was the health minister in Hamas's Gazan government. Al-Mukhalalati died in 2014. Mofeed initially denied that his father was a Hamas member.

“My father died in 2014 when I was still young," Mofeed said. "He was a surgeon who did remarkable work, for which he is widely recognized in Palestine, building health services for the people of Gaza. I am deeply proud of the work that he did in caring for the health of others and his legacy is extremely important to me.”

There are social media posts by Mofeed in which he expressed support for Hamas, individual terrorists, and terrorist activity. Mofeed has since closed his Twitter and Facebook accounts. In one 2013 Facebook post, Mofeed called to kidnap Israeli soldiers to ransom them for imprisoned Palestinian combatants. In 2015 he celebrated the anniversary of the death of Hamas chief bomb-maker, Yahya Ayyash.

"When it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, mainstream political parties like Labour are expected to act impartially," Joseph Cohen of the Israel Advocacy Movement said. "This is why we were shocked when an al-Jazeera interview suggested Omar helped draft a Labour motion highly critical of Israel.

The UK Labour party passed the motion on September 28 during their annual party conference. The motion condemned "the ongoing Nakba in Palestine, Israel’s militarised violence attacking the Al Aqsa mosque, the forced displacements from Sheikh Jarrah and the deadly assault on Gaza."

It noted the "unequivocal 2021 reports by B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch that conclude unequivocally that Israel is practicing the crime of apartheid as defined by the UN," and called for "stopping any arms trade used to violate Palestinian human rights and trade with illegal Israeli settlements."

However, Labour leadership indicated that the motion would not become official party policy: "Labour’s policy is for a peaceful, negotiated two-state solution that ensures a sovereign Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel," the party said in a statement.

One of the major criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn, UK Labour party's previous leader, was his interactions and engagement with members of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

IAM is a British based organization that seeks "to establish a 'mass movement' of Israeli advocates through training and mobilising a network of passionate supporters of Israel." (JPost / VFI News)

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