EU insists on Hamas terror status after blacklist removal

The European Union scrambled to set the record straight on Hamas Wednesday after an EU court ordered the removal of the Palestinian Islamist group from its terror blacklist, infuriating Israel.

The ruling threatened recent Brussels attempts to play a bigger role in reviving the moribund Middle East peace process, with Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu saying it showed Europeans had learned nothing from the Holocaust.

A vote by the European Parliament backing the recognition in principle of a Palestinian state just hours after the Hamas decision, following a series of such votes in European nations, added fuel to the fire.