Activist on Palestine march calls Hamas hostage-taking ‘an important act of resistance’
An activist involved in the Armistice Day pro-Palestine march has said that the taking of hostages was a “very important part” of any “act of resistance” and that Israel was “mimicking” Nazis.
Anas Altikriti, a director of the Muslim Association of Britain, also criticised the designation of Hamas as a terrorist group and said reports that the group had perpetrated rape on October 7 were a “lie”.
The Muslim Association of Britain was founded by the former Hamas chief Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, and was one of the organisations which organised the pro-Palestine march which took place in London on Armistice Day.
As well as being a director of the MAB, Dr Altikriti is the founder of The Cordoba Foundation.
The foundation says it exists to promote “dialogue and a rapprochement between Islam and the West”, but in 2009 the then Conservative leader David Cameron said in the House of Commons that it was a UK front for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood – a claim which Dr Altikriti has denied.
In a video recorded with the US imam Tom Facchine last month, Dr Altikriti was asked about Hamas’s taking of hostages.
He said: “The taking of hostages is a very important part of any strategic sort of military action or act of resistance or the such because for every hostage you can then negotiate.
“You have personnel who are vital and crucial at least in your thinking and your mind to your adversary, to your enemy, so it’s a negotiating power.
“For the people of Gaza, for Hamas, for the resistance, call them as you may, a hostage is very, very valuable, and therefore they will be looked after, they will be cared for, they will be cared for even more than the actual citizens of Gaza simply because they provide cover for the resistance, they provide a negotiating card once the battle arrives at a point where people are sitting around the table or talking at least about some sort of deal.
“Therefore those hostages were taken by Hamas in order to negotiate more freedoms, more rights, the breakout of this prison that we call Gaza, this concentration camp that we call Gaza.”
The description of Gaza as a concentration camp is controversial because of its connotations with the Holocaust. According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, it can be anti-Semitic to draw “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.
In the video, Dr Altikriti also compared the foundation of the modern state of Israel with the Crusades. He said: “The project that was imposed on this region was a Zionist project in order to subjugate the entire region, to steal its riches. It was a colonial project. It was similar to the Crusades by the way.”
He has meanwhile made a number of controversial statements on X, formerly known as Twitter, since October 7.
On the day of the Hamas attack, he tweeted: “What did we think was going to happen? That Palestinians would stay silent whilst forever subjugated, victimised, abused, violated, murdered and tortured?! This is for every time western governments stayed silent and whitewashed Israel’s crimes and violations.”
On December 13, he indicated that he disagreed with Hamas being designated a terrorist group, tweeting: “The fact that our government, only a few years ago, decided to proscribe #Hamas, whilst dozens of other countries in the world, including our friends, consider them a national liberation movement and continue to deal with them, doesn’t make them terrorist, as much as it brings into question the political decision of our government, which in my estimation, is entirely and completely wrong.”
Rape allegations ‘false’
In another tweet the same day, he said: “Allegations of rape made by Israel are false. It’s a lie… Just like every other allegation made by Israel turns out to be a lie, including the mass slaughter of Israeli citizens on the 7th of October. That too was a lie.”
This is despite detailed reports suggesting that Hamas fighters perpetrated sexual violence during the attack.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism described his comments as “conspiratorial and propagandistic”. A spokesman for the CAA said: “It is time for the authorities to crack down on this wave of religious extremism that appears to excuse, defend and even promote anti-Semitic terrorist violence.”
When approached for comment by The Telegraph, Dr Altikriti posted a comment on X saying he had “zero confidence that anything I respond with will be reflected or considered”.
He added: “I’d rather use my time exposing the war crimes committed by Israel, the genocidal essence of #Zionism and the hypocrisy and inhumanity of western governments. I’ll keep my eyes peeled in anticipation for an article you pen addressing the fact that over 11,000 children to date have been butchered by the Nazi-mimicking entity called Israel.”
The MAB said: “Dr. Anas Altikriti does not speak for, nor represent the views of the MAB. His social media accounts are entirely independent and represent his own opinions.
“MAB is a grassroots British organisation founded in 1997 at a general assembly of over 200 diverse Muslim leaders from all over the UK.
“We are dedicated to fostering a fair and just society for all within the United Kingdom. We stand by our commitment to these principles.”
