Hamas is well known in the Middle East, as well as by the State Department, as a vicious band of terror thugs, Now, an Egyptian court has just followed suit by officially recognizing Hamas in Gaza as a “terrorist organization.”
While the court ruling is unlikely to have an immediate effect on Hamas, it is significant as the more moderate el-Sissi government, which came after a Muslim Brotherhood-led administration, makes life for Hamas that bit harder.
As Mkhaimar Abu Sada, a political science professor at Gaza’s Al Azhar University , said on Saturday, “There is no doubt that Hamas is being pushed into the corner further and further.”
He added that the current relations between Hamas and Cairo have “reached a point of no return.”
Judge Mohamed el-Sayed of the Court For Urgent Matters, who made the ruling, said Hamas had targeted both civilians and security forces in the Sinai Peninsula, and that the group aimed to harm the interests of Egypt.
This is interesting as Egypt, a Muslim state, is now agreeing with what Israel, the Jewish state, has been saying about the terror structure of Hamas for years.
The court released a statement to the Egyptian news agency, MENA , saying, “It has been proven without any doubt that the movement has committed acts of sabotage, assassinations and the killing of innocent civilians and members of the armed forces and police in Egypt.”
On top of that, the ruling added that Hamas was in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood, a militant Islamist organization in Egypt, which Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has described as the root of extremism,
“It has been also ascertained with documents that (Hamas) has carried out bombings that have taken lives and destroyed institutions and targeted civilians and the armed forces personnel,” the ruling said. “This movement works for the interests of the terrorist Brotherhood organization.”
As was to be expected, the response from Hamas has been one of condemnation for the Egyptian court’s ruling, as the Hamas website noted, calling the ruling “shocking and dangerous.”
The Hamas site added, “This decision is a great shame and sullies the reputation of Egypt. It is a desperate attempt to export the internal Egyptian crisis and will have no effect on the position of Hamas which enjoys the respect of all the people and leaders of the nation.”
