The contentious launch event for a book titled ‘Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters’ went ahead at LSE on Monday amid tense demonstrations
March 11, 2025 14:17
ByEliana Jordan, at LSE
The much-disputed launch event for a book titled Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters took place at the London School of Economics on Monday night, with speakers and attendees entering the venue under a cacophony of chanting protesters and counter-protesters, one side accusing the other of terrorist apologism, the other of book-burning.
But inside the panel event itself, hosted by LSE’s Middle East Centre, speakers including one co-author of the book Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters made a series of contentious statements about the “misunderstood” terrorist organisation, with one academic claiming that labelling Hamas as terrorists is “dehumanising”.
Jeroen Gunning, professor of Middle Eastern politics and conflict at King’s College London (KCL) and a contributor to the book, argued that calling Hamas a terrorist group “has devastating effects.”
“It erases the historical context to the [October 7] attacks. It facilitates the dehumanisation of not just Hamas, but all Gazans.”
The book, which purportedly “identifies and examines themes including Hamas’s critical shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement” and “its transformation from early anti-Jewish tendencies to a stance that differentiates between Judaism and Zionism”, was the subject of rampant criticism in recent weeks, with pro-Israel figures urging the cancellation of the event at LSE over its potential breach of laws around the expression of support for a proscribed terrorist group.
But the event went ahead on Monday, with the university maintaining its position that the book launch was permissible according to the school’s freedom of speech provisos. It was met by hundreds of protesters waving Israeli flags and condemning LSE for platforming Hamas propagandists, kept apart by barricades from a group of masked counter-protesters bearing Palestinian flags and foghorns.
Gunning was joined by the book’s co-author Helena Cobban, who told the audience of LSE students and staff that Hamas “has been systematically misrepresented in the corporate media in this country and in much of the West for a long time prior to October 7, 2023, and most especially since October 7, 2023.
“I think it’s important for us all to recognise the degree to which the corporate media in this country have actually been complicit in the misrepresentation and I would even say the disrepresentation of both Hamas, the movement and its actions,” she said.
Cobban added that “resistance to occupation” is permitted under international law.
She was cut off by the chair of the event, Professor Michael Mason, director of LSE’s Middle East Centre, when she claimed the “important fact” that “a lot of what the Hamas units were doing on October 7 was attacking military targets inside Israel.”
Mason also pointed out that the book included “only one statement that war crimes were committed by Hamas”.
“Throughout the book, war crimes and atrocities are almost only attributed to Israel,” Mason said. “Given this moral one-sidedness, why would any reasonable person not conclude on reading the book that it whitewashes the indiscriminate and grievous violence on the October 7 attacks?”
During the Q&A portion of the panel discussion, the speakers were questioned by audience members about claims made in the book. One attendee slammed the authors for tacit support of the proscribed terrorist organisation, saying: “Your twisted views of demonisation and vilification in relation to Hamas is a clear attempt to exonerate a terrorist organisation to depict Hamas as innocent and as being unfairly portrayed and misunderstood.”
But Cobban defended the book’s position as offering a "corrective” to the view provided by the “corporate media.” She said: “I want to underline that I am not saying for one moment that Hamas has not committed violations of international humanitarian law. I know they did.”
LSE stood by its decision to host the event in an earlier statement to the JC, saying: “We have clear policies in place to ensure the facilitation of debates in these events and enable all members of our community to refute ideas lawfully and to protect individual’s rights to freedom of expression within the law.
“This is formalised in our code of practice on free speech and in our ethics code.”