Politics
Guardian newspaper criticised for failure to remove columns by Hamas leader
The paper’s website still carries four columns from Khalid Mish’al, acting head of Hamas’s political bureau
December 12, 2025 12:34
The paper’s website still carries four columns from Khalid Mish’al, acting head of Hamas’s political bureau
December 12, 2025 12:34The Guardian newspaper has been criticised for continuing to display columns by a leading member of Hamas on its website.
Khalid Mish’al – who served as the head of Hamas’s political bureau from 1996 to 2017 and last year returned as acting head, becoming a de facto leader of the group – wrote four columns for the Guardian between 2006 and 2009, at a time when the organisation wasn’t fully proscribed as a terrorist organisation under UK law.
In one of them, shortly after Hamas’s election victory in 2006, Mish’al, whose name takes various spellings in English, wrote: “We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem”, but claimed that the organisation was willing to negotiate a “long-term truce”.
At present, none of the columns feature any disclaimer to reflect Hamas’s full proscription as a terrorist group.
The group’s military wing was proscribed as a terror organisation in 2001 by the UK government, and in 2021 the then-Conservative government assessed that the previous difference between Hamas’s military and political wings was an artificial one, with the entire group then proscribed.
The decision to keep Mish’al’s columns online was criticised by the Government’s former independent adviser on political violence and disruption.
Lord Walney told the JC: “It is obviously completely unacceptable for the Guardian to be publishing opinion pieces on its website from a senior member of the Islamist terror organisation who carried out the brutal murder, rape, beheadings on October 7 2023 then held onto hostages for two years.
“If this was an oversight rather than deliberate, their editors must make that clear by removing the pieces from Khalid Mashaal immediately.”
In 2002, the Guardian’s then-sister paper, The Observer, re-published on the Guardian’s website Osama bin Laden’s infamous “Letter to America” in which the al-Qaeda founder linked the 9/11 attacks to American support for Israel.
It said: “The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.”
Shortly after October 7, the Guardian removed the text from its website after it went viral on social media platform TikTok, where many young users praised its content.
A note on the Guardian’s webpage where the letter had been displayed states: “The transcript published on our website had been widely shared on social media without the full context. Therefore we decided to take it down and direct readers instead to the news article that originally contextualised it.”
Former cabinet minister Lord Pickles suggested that the Guardian should take similar measures in relation to Mish’al’s columns.
He said: “A newspaper’s digital archive remains live in the same way as an individual’s social media account does. It is irresponsible of the Guardian not to ensure that at least a note accompanies each column explaining Khalid Mashaal’s connection with the proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas. Alternatively, they could take down Mr Mashaal’s columns as they did [with] Osama bin Laden.”
Representatives for the Guardian declined to comment.
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