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.
Making an exception for one organisation, pressured by politicians, would be harmful. BBC has the following policy about neutral reporting:
We don’t use loaded words like “evil” or “cowardly”. We don’t talk about “terrorists”. And we’re not the only ones to follow this line. Some of the world’s most respected news organisations have exactly the same policy
this is very relevant. thanks.
Continuing the tradition of British conservative prime ministers labelling things “terrorism” when the poor get uppity.
How’s Thatcher looking these days for insisting that Mandela was a terrorist?
If Hamas isn’t a terrorist organization then what would you call them?
I’ll put this back to you this way: is Likud also a terrorist organization? Is the IDF? Because they do a lot of the same stuff.
There are definitely terrorists associated with Hamas, and Hamas definitely carries water for them, but they’re also the duly elected government in Gaza and if I were Israel I’d be asking why Gazans feel like they were so wronged that the only option seems to be a political movement that’s sympathetic to terrorist tactics.
Saying “they’re terrorists” without acknowledging how we got here is a lot like calling the ANC in South Africa “terrorist” in the 1980s. It’s stupidly reductionist and ignores complexity for the sake of jingoism.
It’s also why Cameron is a disingenuous jackass.
I agree with everything you’ve said. Hamas can be a terrorist organization, and still be the elected government. Both can be true, and acknowledging the how and why of that being the case is necessary reach a resolution to the conflict.
What’s your definition of terror tactics?
My definition of terrorist tactics is irrelevant to how the OP would classify Hamas.
Regardless, here’s how terrorism is defined on Wikipedia: it seems pretty reasonable to me.
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants
So would you agree that Israel as an ethno colonialist state uses these tactics?
The fact that you’re trying move this conversation towards the actions of Israel while avoiding the actions of Hamas leads me to believe you’re not interested in having a genuine discussion. I think you’re trying to play gotcha.
Have Israel and Hamas used terrorist tactics? I think so. Do both sides not care about the well-being of civilians? I think so. Are both sides of this conflict bad? I think so.
so is there any real reason to worry about wether Hamas is a terror organisation?
Was the ANC a terror organisation?
Was the IRA a terror organisation?
Was the American revolution a terror organisation?
perhaps the label has no meaning.
Let’s condemn killings if civilians. let’s also be realistic about the situation. the people of Gaza have no choice about who is occupying them.
Yes both sides commit terrorism. And one side gets billions of dollars in government aid and weapons despite murderifn journalists and openly causing famine.
I’m so tired of this political game. Abbas condemned terrorism and Israel refused to work with him for decades because the existence of terrorism gave them license to steal more land. He went to the UN to ask for statehood and Israeli leaders threatened to press charges of war crimes against him. His response was “we’ll share a cell at The Hague.”
Maybe, but a better question might be was George Washington a terrorist? What about Nat Turner?
Maybe, but I’m kinda on their sides
Paramilitary?
Seriously I’m old enough to remember when words other than “terrorist” were used.
Hamas doesn’t just want to cause terror, and isn’t a random group. It’s an organized group with an objective goal to destroy the nation of Israel that’s part of a governing body.
Nowadays anyone that’s “the bad guy” is just called “terrorist”. That’s not by accident either - makes it hard to talk nuance when you make things black and white, and gives oligarchs and autocrats a nice loaded word to use against “revolutionaries”.
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?
The very first, if I recall.
To be clear, there’s no evidence he did.
I honestly could not care less whether or not it’s true. He’s told so many lies that if a lie is told about him that makes it sound like he stuck his dick in a pig, good. He deserves it.
Personally, I don’t think that two wrongs cancel out, and I’m not particularly keen on hypocrisy. Just wanted to point out for people who might not know that story has no evidence.
if you describe hamas as a terrorist organisation (they are) then you also have to point out israel’s role in creating and funding them.
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.
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.
“Terrorist” always seems to rely more on your political affiliation than it does your actions. I have always hated the word.
Its only purpose is to make people angry
- 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
Was George Washington a terrorist?
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.
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.
I was about to say that slave ‘ownership’ doesn’t make him a terrorist, but yeah it does because i don’t think it’s possible to enslave a person without terrorizing them.
based
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.
He’s not right. He’s asking the BBC to forego it’s neutral stance. That’s not okay.
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.
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
Oh well as long as you’re not the only one doing it then it’s fine.
Hamas is a terrorist organization. So is the IDF. Protect the people, not the barbarian leaders they admittedly did choose. I choose to defend the people because no sane minded person would elect a leader that uses their own citizens as bait and hostages and i believe most people can be at least called sane minded.
Sorry Dave, I trust John Simpson. You’re just a pink-faced ham botherer.
Glad to see he’s still not letting reality infringe on his fantasies. Who wants a competent foreign minister anyway?
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