London’s School of Economics is refusing to cancel a book launch today that alarmingly celebrates a “misunderstood” Hamas.

“Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters,” by Helena Cobban and Rami G. Khouri presents a sanitized version of the terrorist organization describing them as a “very solid, multifaceted, pragmatic, principled and popular liberation organization.” Disturbingly, they write that calling Hamas a terrorist organization “strips violent resistance of historical and political context” and urges governments and publics worldwide to end their “demonization of Hamas” and its allies.

This is the same Hamas that brutally killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7 and subjected kidnapped hostages to murder and starvation

According to the Telegraph, the book grew out of webinars run by Cobban’s non-profit, Just World Educational, which she launched to challenge what she describes as “the reluctance of so many North Americans even to start to discuss Hamas.”

Israel’s ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely demanded the university pull the plug on the book launch scheduled for later this afternoon at LSE’s Middle East Centre.

“I am deeply concerned that the event is providing a platform for Hamas propaganda – a terror organization proscribed under United Kingdom law,” Hotovely wrote in a letter to LSE president Larry Kramer. “Your Jewish and Israeli students will be feeling anxious and fearful for their own safety at this moment in time.”

“The past 17 months have been deeply traumatic to Jewish people in the UK and around the world. Indeed, cases of reported anti-Semitic incidents rose by 148% last year – with university campuses specifically seeing a rise in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred,” she insisted. “I worry that by promoting such a book, which sympathizes with and justifies the survival and existence of Hamas, will only serve to grow support for a brutal terror organization among your students and beyond.”

Jewish advocacy groups aren’t staying silent either. The Campaign Against Antisemitism slammed the book’s premise that Hamas faces “intense vilification.”

“Perhaps that is because it capped decades of lethal suicide bombings with the massacre of 1,200 and the abduction of some 250 people,” the group wrote on X. “Is such conduct not worthy of ‘vilification’?”

Still, LSE isn’t backing down despite the outrage, insisting the book merely explores Hamas’s “shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement.”

“Free speech and freedom of expression underpins everything we do at LSE,” a spokesman for LSE tells the Telegraph. “Students, staff and visitors are strongly encouraged to discuss and debate the most pressing issues around the world.

“We host an enormous number of events each year, covering a wide range of viewpoints and positions. 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.”

With LSE capitulating to Hamas supporters, Stop the Hate is organizing a counterprotest at LSE’s Middle East Centre today at 5:30 PM.