Foreign secretary’s call comes after group releases video of British-Israeli hostage it says died after being wounded in Israeli airstrike
David Cameron has urged the BBC to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, reviving an accusation that the corporation shies away from a valid description of the Islamist group that is holding Israeli hostages.
The UK foreign secretary told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the organisation should reconsider its guidelines in light of a video released by Hamas showing the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who the group said had died in Gaza.
Hamas released a statement on Saturday saying the 51-year-old had died after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike a month ago. The video showed him with a black eye.
Hamas is a terrorist organization
Wikipedia first lines summarizes the 7th of October quite well:
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims.
Hamas still haven’t released the civilian hostages. Hamas hides among civilians. The list goes on and on.
The only sad part is that the Palestinian people once voted for a terrorist organisation to represent them.
People can call Hamas for “Freedom Fighters” all they want but it doesn’t erase the fact:
Hamas is a terrorist organisation.
And there’s the problem. Why should Hamas be called a terrorist and not the Israel government?
This is why news organisations avoid the word. It clearly picks a side.
Why Hamas should be called a terrorist organisation?
Because they have been committing acts of terrorism.
Whether other organisations has committed or has not commited terrorist acts is irrelevant in this context and does in no way cancel out the horrible things Hamas has been doing.
You spelled Israel wrong.
Both can be true. But that doesn’t mean the BBC should give up its neutral stance.
Neutral would be calling Likud a terrorist organization as well.
If Great Britain labels Hamas a terrorist organization, why shouldn’t the BBC then to the same?
Because the BBC is not the PR arm of the British government. It is supposed to be an independent and impartial entity.
brit living in America. It is astonishing the difference between news feeds
the BBC waivers and has its faults and biases, but even biases I loosely agree with are so partisan in the US it makes me feel a bit unwell.
It’s the official stance of the country from their own government, by extension the british people. Are you saying that’s not what the BBC represents?
No. The BBC does not represent the official stance of the country and never has. It is an independent journalistic body.
Of course they do. The aren’t allowed to print anything they want. Public service is governed by state. Well at least in Sweden but the principle is the same.
No. They’re saying the BBC is not the government’s mouthpiece. It is an impartial public broadcaster. The same BBC that has reported on both IRA bombings and Sinn Féin elections. If you understand that last sentence you may realise why the BBC speaks as it does.
BBC is regulated by the government in the form of Ofcom according to:
Isreal isn’t labeled a terrorist organization by any institutional body that I know of.
Which is ironic considering at this point Israel has most likely killed more innocent civilians than Hamas ever did
So has the US, Russia, China etc. by that metric. The killing of civilians is not what determines a terrorist organization.
Oh well that’s convenient
Well you brought it up, but it contradicts your point.
Did I?
The zionist paramilitaries that were consolidated (read: Likud) into the first iteration of the IDF were proud, avowed terrorists because they knew they couldn’t win a territorial conflict using conventional methods while outnumbered on hostile turf. Labeled, ha.
Sounds like the BBC’s explanation on their use of language regarding Hamas is relevant here:
John Simpson responded to the criticism in a post on X. “British politicians know perfectly well why the BBC avoids the word ‘terrorist’, and over the years plenty of them have privately agreed with it,” he wrote.
"Calling someone a terrorist means you’re taking sides and ceasing to treat the situation with due impartiality.
“The BBC’s job is to place the facts before its audience and let them decide what they think, honestly and without ranting.”
He said: “It’s about making sure that all audiences trust the information that we’re giving them, that they don’t think the BBC is coming at this from one side of the conflict as opposed to the other, and that we steer a course though this in very difficult circumstances in which our journalism can continue to be factual, accurate, impartial and truthful.”
The corporation’s editorial guidelines say the word “terrorist” can be “a barrier rather than an aid to understanding”.
They say: "We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened.
"We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’ and ‘militant’.
“We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.”
Hamas is a terrorist organization because they use violence against civilians with the goal of imposing their political will, this is, they commit acts of terrorism. Now, if you use this standard, the Israeli government also uses violence against civilians with the goal of imposing their political will, this is, they commit acts of terrorism, therefore the Israeli government is also a terrorist organization. Would David Cameron be okay with the BBC maintaining their neutrality and describing both sides as terrorists?
Hamas is a terrorist organization because they use violence against civilians with the goal of imposing their political will
I’d even go so far as to dispute this much. The Alaqsa Flood targeted armed border guards and other military personal. Rockets were defensive measures focused on Israeli snipers and drones patrolling the Gaza interior. The last two months of fighting have been entirely in Gaza, with Hamas rebels resisting the occupation and demolition of homes, schools, and hospitals.
Hamas rank slightly above the Vietcong on the terrorist spectrum.
Can we label him as a pig-fucking PM? Oh wait, we already do.
Isn’t that a Black Mirror episode?
One man’s terrorist group is another man’s freedom fighter. This is why many new organizations that are big on neutrality normally shy away from calling anyone terrorist groups. You could just as easily frame Israel as a terrorist group with the same justifications listed above.
It’s terrorists/freedom fighters all the way down.
Hamas are every bit as much a terrorist organisation as Isis, the IRA, FARC, Red Army faction, Al Qaeda or UDF have been.
None of which are called terrorists by the BBC.
The BBC has a long standing policy against calling people/organizations terrorists.
Their position in this case says nothing about how they view Hamas. The position of those complaining about it says a lot about how they view the role news organizations.
Meh, if you commit acts of terrorism, you are a terrorist. We have nouns for a reason.
Was George Washington a terrorist?
Yes.
Our experts confirm Washington secretly rotated his slaves out of the state, sometimes just sending them over the river to New Jersey, so they couldn’t claim their freedom.
“He actually instructs his secretary to do it in a way that will deceive them, meaning the slaves and the public,” MacLeod said. “So, he doesn’t want his actions to become common knowledge because he knows that there are so many abolitionists in the city that it could become a PR disaster for him.”
In 1793, Washington signs the Fugitive Slave Act into law, which helps slaveholders recapture enslaved people who have escaped.
based
If he terrorized then yes.
What do you mean if. We’ve had 200 years to mull it over.
I don’t know anything about George Washington.
- Hamas: A population largely under the age of 18 who have been ruthlessly bombed, sniped, and starved for months while they are bottled up at the southern border in a concentration camp
Terrorists
- The IDF: Leveraging sophisticated AI tools to assassinate entire families, demolishing whole city blocks in a fit of religious zeal, systematically kidnapping and torturing dissidents and journalists, infiltrating foreign governments to assassinate democratically elected leaders, and spreading a toxic ideology of hatred and bigotry in hopes of terrorizing their regional rivals into compliance with their demands.
Not Terrorists
Hamas is comparable to the IRA but not the rest.
The big difference is that organisations like ISIS try to take over other countries whereas Hamas is resisting colonists of their own country.
Sorry Dave, I trust John Simpson. You’re just a pink-faced ham botherer.
Palestinian military defending their country
By shooting rockets at random and kidnapping civilians
are you talking about Hamas or IDF?
Totally unlike the other fielded armies globally at the moment.
/S
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How this dickwipe managed to get in the spotlights again after what he did I’ll never understand. He’s right though, they should be called terrorists because they are. And bbc while you’re at it also call the genocide of remaining Palestinians a genocide.
They say in almost every story on the BBC News TV channel that talks about Hamas that they are designated a terrorist organisation by the UK government.
