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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

That legacy continues today across the Zionist political spectrum, further indicating how and why the continued genocide of the Palestinian people cannot simply be limited the current actions of the Netanyahu regime, but rather how it sits on a much longer colonial trjectory.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

As we approach Nakba Day on 15 May 2025, it is important to note and understand how Zionism is itself, an ideology that is rooted in a particular form of European settler colonialism, one that was informed to a great extent by fascism.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

While Sai Englert's work shows the trajectory of Zionist thinking learning from settler colonialism during the period of European colonisation, what is less known, is the extent to which Revisionist Zionism is heavily influenced by fascism.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Benzion Netanyahu was deeply influed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and his book 'The Iron Wall' which continues to find salience in the current Likud Party. Benjamin Netanyahu fully accepts the role tha Jabotinsky's writings have had in informing his politics and beliefs.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Professor al-Arian highlights how the founding principles of Revisionist Zionism - now in power in 'Israel' - requires belief in territorial maximalism, and thus the exclusion of all Arabs.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Benzion Netanyahu was originally born on 25 March 1910 as Benzion Mileikowsky, changing his name to Netanyahu (meaning 'God has given') when arriving in Palestine in 1920. European Jewish settlers would often change their names as a means of masking their European origins.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Central to the expert report by @DrSamiAlArian is how the current Likud Party, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, has its political ideology informed by his father Benzion, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founders of Revisionist Zionism.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Building on the work of Dr Sai Englert, Professor @DrSamiAlArian's report focuses on how Zionism as an ideology, has always had maximalist expansionist goals, ones that have always sought the complete displacement of the Palestinian people. www.hamascase.com/volume-ii/10...

hamascase.com

ZIONISM AS A MAXIMALIST IDEOLOGY

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The purposeful displacement of the Palestinian people and their cantonement in a suffocating small open air concentration camp, for Dr Englert, led to a cocktail of conditions that resulted in the attacks on 7 October 2023 - a day that cannot be divorced from setterl colonialism.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The settler colonial identity of the Zionist state cannot be denied, as it drew so heavily on colonisation as a model for its own existence. This would be crystallised in the thinking and works of Zeev Jabotinsky - the ideological forebear of Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The idea of a loyal Jewish state surrounded by Arab hostility wasn't just one that occupied the imagination of the founding Zionists, it has remained central to British interests in the region, and later to the US as well. The colonial character of Zionism is well understood.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Citing extensively from early Zionist sources, he evidences how from the very founding documentation, the emphasis of Zionists was always on the population displacement of the Palestinian people.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

After setting out a detailed record of what settler colonialism is, Englert explains that the existence of 800,000 settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territory leaves no room for doubt that 'Israel' is a settler colony. A fact of its own founding literature.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

He sets how settler colonialism is a strategy of "accumulation on a world scale" - that is builds lasting societies that control land and territory, at the expense of Indigenous peoples.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Dr Sai Englert's report on Settler Colonialis, Zionism and the Genocide in Gaza provides a specific insight that connects long histories of European colonialism and racism to the establishment of 'Israel' as a settler colonial state. www.hamascase.com/volume-ii/23...

hamascase.com

SETTLER COLONIALISM, ZIONISM, AND THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Two of the reports addended to the application were by Dr Sai Englert and Professor @DrSamiAlArian - the former writing on settler colonialism, while the latter explaining Zionism as a maximalist ideology.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

To understand Zionism at its core, the team at Riverway Law representing Hamas, wanted to ensure that adequate material was made available to the Home Secretary in understanding settler colonialism - the root of Zionist presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

For Shlaim, this is all made much more profound by the Zionist state's ultimate status as an apartheid regime - one that like John Dugard, cannot be looked past. Thus, due to the apartheid nature "the whole debate about Israel's so-called right to exist becomes an irrelevance"

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

In the process of their demands for international recognition, they have attempted to create a hostile environment for anyone who critiques Zionism and the Zionist state - by labelling all such criticisms as antisemetic.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

What his report does, is to express how utterly ludicrous the demands of both the Zionist Labour and Likud parties are of the Palestinian people - and Hamas in particular.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

As Professor Shlaim explains - the UK government's proscription of Hamas directly relates to the refusal of the group to recognise 'Israel' as a legitimate state, but that has little to do with its legitimacy or Hamas being a terrorist organisation. This has much wider effects.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

In a similar vein to Professor Dugard, Professor Avi Shlaim wrote one of his three reports for the application on the concept of the Zionist state's right to exist - arguing that no such right exists under international law: hamascase.com/volume-ii/13_s…

hamascase.com

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

As someone who lived through apartheid, John Dugard makes plain how the Zionist state is not exempt from the ostracisation that was levelled at the white South African apartheid regime.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Professor Dugard further questions the legality of the Zionist state's present policies: the unlawful occupation and status as an apartheid state.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

After the end of the British Mandate on 14 May 1949 and the declaration of the Zionist state, the correct position under international law is that 'Israel' forcibly seceded from the Mandate Terroritory. Making its moral claim not only dubious, but incorrect.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

He shows that 'Israel' attempts to assert its right to recognition in its declaration of independence in 1948 - after its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people - the Balfour Declaration in 1917, 1922 League of Nations Mandate, and the 1947 UNGA partition.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Dugard provides the example of Rhodesia, which unilaterally declared itself a state in 1965, but who was denied that claim by the UK and the UN. Similarly, Tibet has declared its right to exist, only to be denied by China - and the list goes on with Catalonia and Kurdistan.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Professor Dugard's report begins by stating explicitly: "The right of a State to exist is not a concept recognized by international law." This sets the tone for his argument, that ultimately international law requires a degree of recognition from others. hamascase.com/volume-ii/14_d…

hamascase.com

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

In this regard, we had Professor John Dugard, the former ad hoc judge to the ICJ, and Professor Avi Shlaim, an expert on Israeli history, write explicitly on the debunking the notion that 'Israel' has a right to exist.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

As part of our submissions, we were keen to express how Zionism as an ideology, and 'Israel' as a state, do not have an inherent right to exist - regardless of what its allies and those complicit in its settler colonial apartheid machinations might argue.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

The expert reports themselves are significant in their scope and detail, and it is worth detailing what those 700 pages of reports individually contribute to the application. You can read them all at: hamascase.com/volume-ii/

hamascase.com

Volume II Documents

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

🧵 In preparation for the Riverway Law application to the UK Home Secretary to have Hamas removed as banned terrorist organisation, I worked with the lawyers to gather experts who provided the evidence base that would form the factual backbone of our legal submissions

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

I write for Ceasefire on my expert reports for the Riverway Law application to have Hamas removed from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations. Palestinians have a natural law right to resist their dispossession - and we must support that right. ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/comment-disp...

ceasefiremagazine.co.uk

Comment | Dispossession resistance is a natural law right of the Palestinian people | Ceasefire Magazine

The Palestinian struggle is very much one of the theft of land, and the choice of a people to not give up on that land and maintain their moral authority over it, writes Asim Qureshi.

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Reposted by Asim Qureshi

Sacramento Radical Education @sac-rad-edu.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Fed up with electoralism? Looking for a better way to engage politically? This is an adaptation of an older subMedia zine that serves as a good introduction to direct action. 🧵1/10

A dim sepia tone photograph of an arrangement of different zines with semi-transparent neon pink text overlayed which reads: What is direct action?

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

As it's Ramadan, one way you can begin to help the prisoners is by supporting CAGE International in our work to assist prisoners across the world. Please donate to my fundraiser here: t.co/auFv6hz2Rv

t.co

https://raise.cage.ngo/campaign/help-me-to-defend-muslim-political-prisoners-this-ramadan/r/recFG7d8guYBCo3lQ

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

How do we understand proximity when the world has been changed by the citizenships we hold and the passports we carry? If it's easier to fly from the UK to Palestine that to cross the border for a Jordanian, then perhaps we need to rethink who is most obligated to intervene?

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

In a world of nation states, where some passports have more access to the world that others, perhaps we could say that Muslims in the UK and US have more of an obligation to come to the aid of those suffering, than say for example the duty owed by Egyptians to Palestinians.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

The paper posits a slightly different conception of the kifaya obligation -one that questions what proximity to a cause looks like. In the past, those closest in distance to a fard al-kifa'i obligation would be required to fulfil the need, but I argue that this requires a rethink

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

The fard al-kifaya is the responsibility on the Muslim community to fulfil an obligation until that matter is complete. The paper argues that freeing of political prisoners comes under such an obligation - that there is a collective responsibility on the ummah to do so.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

I argue that in a world where the ummah can no longer simply pay a ransom to deliver a Muslim prisoner from captivity, that our duty to political prisoners is to assist them in any way that we can. This takes the paper on to a discussion around the concept of the fard al-kifaya

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

The Qur'an, Sunnah and classical scholarship refer to al-Asir, al-Riqaab and al-Ani - but is modern political detention captured by these terms that mostly referred to bondage or captivity as prisoners of war?

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

When we consider the cases of those in Guantanamo Bay, Aafia Siddiqui, those detained in political detention by the Egyptian authorities - the question arises as to what duty is owed to them?

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

After 13 years of working slowly on this, I finally publish this report on the Islamic duty towards Muslim political prisoners/captives this Ramadan for CAGE International. Sincere thanks to Shaykh Yusuf Shabbir for his comments to improve the argument. A 🧵 t.co/qpf5PgTCZp

t.co

https://www.cage.ngo/articles/new-report-examines-muslim-duty-towards-prisoners

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Great work Ruth, thanks for writing this.

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Reposted by Asim Qureshi

Ruth Michaelson @ruthmichaelson.com · 12/02/2025

At the infamous Palestine branch in Damascus, several former detainees who were brutally tortured there are now guarding the facility. What will happen to this site of so much horror will say a lot about the Syria's future. My piece w. Obaida Hamad. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

theguardian.com

‘Finally this is justice’: the Assad torture survivors who guard their former jail

Men imprisoned and abused at the notorious Palestine branch detention centre return to the facility as free men

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Enjoyed this translation of Wisam Rafeedie’s The Trinity of Fundamentals, a fictionalised account of his time in the Zionist occupation prisons. Yeah get a real understanding of how, even in the act of hiding, resistance movements maintain their dignity.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

“What happens to us in the future? Do we become assholes or something?” I thought of this line from Back to the Future when considering the renewed policy of sending migrants to Guantanamo. It's nothing new, rather it’s central to the architecture of US violence www.newarab.com/opinion/trum...

newarab.com

Trump sending migrants to Guantanamo isn't new

Trump is not the first US president to confine migrants in Guantanamo, but this sets back over 20 years of campaigning for its closure, explains Asim Qureshi.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

If calls are to be made to condemn, then we should ask ourselves, why? What purpose does the question serve, and why should we answer it? Ultimately, the answer should always be: I refuse to condemn.

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Asim Qureshi @asimqureshi.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

"Calls to condemn haunt us; follow us; threaten to overwhelm us; silence us. The pressure to condemn our own (and other marginalised) communities lingers in the air: it is ubiquitous. Sometimes the pressure is spoken, more often it is silent, but always it is felt." Remi Joseph-Salisbury

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