Galloway Receives Ismail Haniyeh Award at Tehran Media Festival

British for­mer politi­cian and activist George Gal­loway has received the Ismail Haniyeh award at a Tehran fes­ti­val. On 5 May 2025, Iran Inter­na­tion­al report­ed that for­mer British MP George Gal­loway had been hon­ored at Iran’s Sobh Inter­na­tion­al Media Fes­ti­val for his vocal sup­port of Pales­tine and align­ment with Iran-backed resis­tance groups. The award, named after the late Hamas leader, high­lights Galloway’s ongo­ing rela­tion­ship with Iran­ian state media and his pub­lic praise for Iran’s sup­port of the Pales­tin­ian cause. The arti­cle begins:

An Iran­ian state media fes­ti­val on Mon­day bestowed its Ismail Haniyeh award on for­mer British MP George Gal­loway in Tehran, where he praised the Islam­ic Repub­lic for what he called its unwa­ver­ing sup­port for the Pales­tin­ian cause. Gal­loway trav­eled to Iran to attend the third edi­tion of the Sobh Inter­na­tion­al Media Fes­ti­val, orga­nized by the for­eign media divi­sion of Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB), the coun­try’s state media orga­ni­za­tion. Orga­niz­ers award­ed him the “Ismail Haniyeh Prize” in recog­ni­tion of his out­spo­ken defense of Pales­tine and align­ment with Iran-backed resis­tance groups. Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s polit­i­cal bureau, was assas­si­nat­ed by Israel in a bomb blast tar­get­ing his res­i­dence in Tehran last year. “No coun­try on the plan­et has worked hard­er than the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran to lib­er­ate the peo­ple of Pales­tine from bondage, suf­fer­ing and end­less sac­ri­fice. That is sim­ply a fact,” said Gal­loway in his address to the festival.

Read more: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202505051150

Key Points

• Gal­loway received the Ismail Haniyeh award in Tehran for his out­spo­ken sup­port of Pales­tine and Iran-backed resis­tance groups.

• The award was giv­en at the Sobh Inter­na­tion­al Media Fes­ti­val, orga­nized by Iran­ian state media IRIB.

• Gal­loway praised Iran’s lead­er­ship and recount­ed his per­son­al ties to the Pales­tin­ian cause dur­ing his speech.

• The fes­ti­val is part of Iran’s broad­er effort to pro­mote its region­al nar­ra­tive and attract sym­pa­thet­ic inter­na­tion­al media voices.

Galloway’s Pro-Hamas Activism and Iranian Networks of Influence

George Galloway’s pro-Hamas activism has been marked by high-pro­file human­i­tar­i­an con­voys and pub­lic alliances with groups like Viva Palesti­na, where he was report­ed to have per­son­al­ly deliv­ered funds and vehi­cles to Hamas lead­er­ship. This activism reflects a broad­er strat­e­gy of build­ing transna­tion­al net­works that lever­age human­i­tar­i­an efforts to ampli­fy polit­i­cal mes­sages and bol­ster the legit­i­ma­cy of vio­lent Pales­tin­ian resis­tance in West­ern discourse.

Iran’s efforts to shape pro-Pales­tin­ian activism in the West are evi­dent in its cul­ti­va­tion of sym­pa­thet­ic net­works and orga­ni­za­tions, as detailed in a broad range of cov­er­age by the GIOR. Arti­cles have includ­ed analy­ses of how Iran­ian nar­ra­tives and cul­tur­al ties have res­onat­ed with West­ern activists, espe­cial­ly amid the Gaza con­flict. The emer­gence of a new glob­al pro-Iran­ian group fea­tur­ing Euro­pean and US rep­re­sen­ta­tives has under­scored Iran’s strat­e­gy of build­ing inter­na­tion­al coali­tions with Pales­tin­ian, Lebanese, and West­ern activists under the ban­ner of “resis­tance” against Israel and West­ern influ­ence. Iran has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cul­ti­vat­ed Pales­tin­ian armed groups for decades, pro­vid­ing fund­ing, weapons, and train­ing to uni­fy dis­parate fac­tions under a broad­er “Axis of Resis­tance,” and lever­ag­ing prox­ies and inter­me­di­aries to extend its region­al influ­ence, although there is no con­clu­sive evi­dence that Tehran direct­ly ordered the Octo­ber 7 attack.

Iran­ian offi­cials have also sought to shape West­ern pol­i­cy and pub­lic opin­ion by estab­lish­ing covert ini­tia­tives that recruit and guide influ­en­tial aca­d­e­mics and ana­lysts, ghost­writ­ing com­men­tary, and sup­ply­ing talk­ing points to align expert dis­course with Tehran’s region­al and nuclear objec­tives. While most West­ern Gaza pro­tes­tors mobi­lize inde­pen­dent­ly, US intel­li­gence con­firms that Iran­ian agen­cies have worked to encour­age and ampli­fy anti-Israel activism through online dis­in­for­ma­tion, cyber oper­a­tions, and indi­rect sup­port, aim­ing to exploit protest move­ments even though direct con­trol over activists remains limited.

Exter­nal References:

• The Path to Octo­ber 7: How Iran Built Up and Man­aged a Pales­tin­ian ‘Axis of Resistance’
• Inside Iran’s influ­ence operation
• The Truth About Iran’s Efforts to Pro­mote Gaza Protests

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.