Last week, former Fatah leader Hussam Khader was removed from SOAS’s “‘Israeli Apartheid Week” bill, having been refused permission to travel by Israel. Khader was arrested in 2003 and convicted of being a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement that played a key role in the second intifada, and for helping fund the group through connections to Hizbollah and Iran.
Having been in Israeli prisons 23 times since the age of 13, he was sentenced to seven years in jail but released after five and a half. In an interview with Ha’aretz several days after being freed, Khader said: “The next intifada will not be one of stones, or even suicide bombers — it will be one of missiles and possibly even chemical weapons.”