Lobby Watch 14 March 2025
Hassen Chalghoumi acts as a mouthpiece for the Israel lobby.
Abaca/Sipa USAIsrael has committed an act of religious intolerance with few parallels – at least in the 21st century. Almost 1,000 of Gaza’s 1,245 mosques were destroyed or badly damaged, along with three churches and numerous cemeteries, over the past 17 months.
This blatant attack on heritage and the right to worship is inseparable from the wider genocide Israel has carried out. The only correct response is for people of all faiths and none to insist that the perpetrators of genocide be held accountable.
Hassen Chalghoumi, an imam based in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, is instead embracing the state responsible for the genocide. He recently announced that he is planning an iftar at the Israeli embassy to France.
Chalghoumi has such a warm relationship with Israel and its lobbying network that he frequently behaves as their mouthpiece.He has attracted media attention over the past few weeks by smearing Rima Hassan, the first French Palestinian elected to the European Parliament.
After alleging that Rima Hassan is an apologist for terrorism, he urged the authorities to “set an example” by stripping her of French citizenship.
Rima Hassan had irked him by pointing out that Hamas has a legitimate right under international law to resist Israel’s military occupation.While Rima Hassan was telling the truth, Hassen Chalghoumi has a penchant for lying.
Imaginative?
Usually, his dishonesty echoes what other pro-Israel advocates say. For instance, he portrayed the incident during which Israeli football hooligans went on the rampage in Amsterdam last year as an anti-Jewish pogrom.
Sometimes, though, Chalghoumi manages to be more original or imaginative. His allegation that ISIS flags have been flown at Brussels demonstrations organized by Samidoun, a group focused on Palestinian prisoners, seems to be a fabrication all his own.
Chalghoumi may be better acquainted with Brussels’ corridors of power than its streets. On a visit to the Belgian capital earlier this month, he was received by Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Union’s coordinator against anti-Semitism.
Like von Schnurbein, Chalghoumi regularly insinuates that the Palestine solidarity movement has an ulterior motive.During his trip to Brussels, he fulminated against a “toxic alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the extreme left.” The EU, in his view, “remains too passive with the notable exception of Austria and, to a lesser extent, Germany.”
Both of those countries have formally declared that defending Israel is a Staatsräson – a reason of state. Both have sought to muzzle and repress protesters who oppose these governments’ enabling of Israel’s crimes.France has engaged in muzzling, too, and Chalghoumi wants more of it. He supports a ban on the French equivalent of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” falsely depicting a desire for equality as an anti-Jewish threat.
Chalghoumi regards those who try to alert the world to Israeli violence as an enemy. He applauded the decision by the Palestinian Authority – a junior partner in Israel’s military occupation – to close down Al Jazeera’s West Bank office.
Undoubtedly, Chalghoumi has played a useful role for the Israel lobby by amplifying its smears. But he has not altered reality.The reality is that there is massive public revulsion at the Gaza genocide. The revulsion won’t be magicked away with a few lies from an Israel-loving imam.
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