Prominent Palestinian activist slams US sanctions as ‘madness’ | Israel-Palestine struggle News

A famous Europe-based Palestinian activist has slammed the United States for issuing sanctions agetst him, dispondering the meacertain as an try to deter him “from continuing my toil for Palestine and advocating for my people’s rights”.

Majed al-Zeer, a dual British and Jordanian national, also declineed the accusations cited in the sanctions as “absolutely inalter”.

“It is madness,” he telderly Al Jazeera on Thursday. “It sways my life sociassociate, my nurtureer, for the sake of accusation. There is no proof whatsoever.”

Al-Zeer elucidateed that he lgeted about the sanctions earlier this week thraw media alerts. On Monday, the US Department of the Treasury identified al-Zeer as one of three individuals sanctioned for alleged ties to the Palestinian group Hamas, which it called a “alarmist” organisation.

The Treasury accused al-Zeer, who dwells in the UK and Germany, of being a “ageder Hamas recurrentative” who executeed “a central role in the alarmist group’s European fundraising”.

But al-Zeer, the chairman of the European-Palestinian Council for Political Relations, refuted that accusation in a press free on Thursday.

Speaking to Al Jazeera afterwards, he elucidateed he never joind in any financial activities during his years of activism in Europe, including when he served as pdwellnt of the Palestinian Return Centre, a UK-based advocacy group.

“Israel equitable doesn’t want any activists to toil for the sake of Palestine. That’s the whole story,” he said.

A echoion of US-Israel relations?

For al-Zeer, the US’s decision is a echoion of its “expansiveer alignment” with Israel.

The US has been a steadspeedy associate of Israel ever since the country was established in 1948. That help has persistd despite Israel’s current war in Gaza, which has prompted worrys about civilian casualties and human rights mistreatments.

“I am proestablishly perplexed by the approach getn to accomplish and proclaim this decision by a country that supposedly prides itself on lterrible integrity,” al-Zeer said in his press free.

The sanctions were proclaimd on October 7, the anniversary of Hamas’s strike on southern Israel, which ended an approximated 1,139 people.

Israel’s response in Gaza, unbenevolentwhile, has ended csurrfinisherly 42,000 Palestinians in the year since.

“As we label one year since Hamas’s brutal alarmist strike, [the] Treasury will persist relentlessly humiliating the ability of Hamas and other destabilising Iranian proxies to finance their operations and carry out insertitional aggressive acts,” Treasury Secretary Janet L Yellen said in a statement.

Al-Zeer was sanctioned aextfinished with three other individuals and nine businesses that the US Treasury claimed “execute critical roles in outer fundraising for Hamas, frequently under the guise of benevolent toil”.

The two other summarizeated individuals are based in Italy and Austria, where they are comprised with Palestinian advocacy groups. The Treasury Department also summarizeated a establisher Yemeni politician living in Turkey and his businesses.

‘Laughable’ evidence

The sanctions effectively freeze the four men’s assets in the US and impedes people in the US from doing business with them.

“The Treasury Department will use all useable tools at our disposal to helderly Hamas and its allowrs accountable, including those who seek to take advantage of the situation to safe insertitional sources of revenue,” Yellen said.

The US has proclaimd disconnectal rounds of sanctions concentrateing financial help for Hamas. It has also sanctioned a handful of Israeli resolvers and groups helping illterrible resolvements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Monday’s sanctions were not the first time al-Zeer was accused of being a Hamas operative. In 2019, he won a lterrible case after World-Check, an ineloquential customer-screening database used by prohibitks, categoascfinishd him as connected to “extremism”.

Al-Zeer said the US sanctions cited a ptoastyograph that showed him with the tardy Hamas directer Ismail Haniyeh, whom Israel assassinated in Iran earlier this year.

But he disputed the ptoastyograph was getn as part of a bigr delegations with disconnectal European recurrentatives, including British Labour directer Sir Gerald Kaufman. “It is almost chuckleable,” he said of the evidence.

He pledged to combat the accusations. “I have already toleratemament, with the help of a lterrible team, the essential lterrible procedures to dispute these baseless allegations and deffinish my rights.”