I guess not strictly news - but with all of the vitriol I have seen in discussions on the Israel situation, that have boiled down to arguments over wording, I feel that this take from the BBC is worthy of some discussion.
Mods, feel free to remove if this is not newsy enough.
No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.
No-one, except for racists who work for the genocide of that population.
But this doesn’t mean that we should start saying that the organisation whose supporters have carried them out is a terrorist organisation, because that would mean we were abandoning our duty to stay objective.
That makes it sound as if the Hamas was a regular, military organization with legitimate goals, which eventually settles their dispute at the negotiating table. And I think that’s giving a false picture of that organization. But let’s hear what they have to say about themselves:
Quoted from article 7:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
Quoted from article 13:
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.
These people (Hamas, not Palestinians) see it as their religious duty to kill all Jews.
I think the BBC’s position makes sense in most conflicts, but not in this one. They probably just try to appease both sides, with an explanation that sounds reasonable, if you don’t look too much behind the curtains.
No, it’s announcing their cowardice. They use ‘terrorist’ for any other non-Israel/Palestine attack (9/11, London Bridge, 7/7, etc) so the entire argument is invalid.
The lawyers told them not to because everyone’s scared of being called anti-semitic, that’s all
I approve of it. Terrorist is a loaded term designed to draw an emotional response from the reader. Every nation could be called a terrorist organization. Any rebellion could be called terrorists. It’s not a useful term. It’s especially not useful in this case because the number killed by Israel is so much higher than Hamas.
Terrorist is generally just a term used to describe those without power using the tools of their oppressor against them. Fear and violence are only “allowed” to be used if you’re the one with power, for whatever reason. It’s stupid.
Domestic attacks and attacks against allies will be called terrorist attacks obviously, because they see value in supporting the status quo.
Well sure, I agree. But the BBC isn’t taking the moral high ground here. They have previously and will again use the word ‘terrorist’ to evoke an emotional response for international attacks.
Interestingly, on their Bitsize page, they describe the Palestinian Liberation Front as a terrorist group, which is true. The mere fact that they have a page on ‘terrorism’ indicates that they don’t take a moral position against the word, just against calling Israel (and Israeli factions/allies) terrorists - www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zy7nqhv/revision/1
Under international law the Palestinians have a right to resist the occupation. That their tactics are not always in accordance with international law is a point you can make only if you recognise that Israel violates these laws far more frequently, and far more brutally, causing far more deaths and an indescribable amount of misery for millions, every day.
The BBC will never describe Israel as a terrorist state and so they are quite correct not to label Palestinian resistance as terrorism.
I think one key difference is that Israel has compulsory service for everyone. Like if in the 1770s the Torrey soldiers on leave held a music festival and they all got gunned down, I’m fairly certain the history books would not change substantially. It’s abhorrent, but if you were in the same situation - occupation by some analogous group to wherever you live who have overwhelming military superiority - would you give up your Identity and assimilate, or try to make them hurt? I’m absolutely NOT saying Palestinians are the good guys, I’m just saying I understand where they’re coming from.
It’s a very one-sided genocide. It’s just plain ridiculous to equate the two sides when it was Zionists who stormed the Arab mandate in 1947, Zionists (and later, Israel) who created hundreds of thousands of refugees with millions still stuck in miserable camps on the borders, Israel who has kept Palestinians under brutal occupation and blockade since 1967, and Israel who bombs densely populated cities with fighter jets while the brand new Hamas air force is using hang-gliders powered by fans.
It’s such a difficult thing to explain to people whose primary exposure to the conflict is through the Western media but these accounts, by two Palestinian and Israeli non-violent activists, are well worth a read. Unfortunately I can’t find the original transcripts so it’s a google books extract and is missing some of George’s testimony.
It’s not a suffering Olympics. Yes, the history is tumultuous, and yes, the State of Israel has more than likely caused way more suffering to Palestinians than Hamas has to Israelis. But that’s besides the point. The point is, civilians on both sides are now paying the price. No one wants to get shot at or bombed, and support for either side’s civilian population is NOT tacit support of the militants of the opposite side.
What they mean as that they could also say Israel is a terrorist state. That’s what some people think. And some people, specially those who have friends or family who have been killed in Palestina, might say that Hamas are defending their people and are not terrorists.
But you and me, citizens without voice, can call them terrorists (that’s what they are) but doing so we are somehow chosing a band in a conflict.
While I get what you mean, I don’t think it should automatically mean (even a lot of people think it does) that you can either say Hamas is a terrorist group or Israel is a terrorist state.
In my own view both are terrorist, both commit atrocities and the result of that are innocent lives lost from both sides.
I despise centrism so saying that hurts a little bit on the inside, but this is one of the rare cases where fighting at all is meaningless and both sides that are fighting (and commiting atrocities) are in the fault.
I’m not sure I’d call Israel a terrorist state, but absolutely an apartheid state.
If you live in Gaza, you really don’t have a lot to lose by attacking Israeli non-combatants, because you have no hope, and the Israeli gov’t keeps going farther and farther to the right. Gaza looks a lot like the Warsaw ghettos prior to rounding all the Jews up and murdering them. The uprisings in the Warsaw ghetto were punished with the same kind of wildly disproportionate force as we’re already seeing Israel use against Gaza.
Hamas and Palestinian militants were, and are, wrong to target and murder non-combatants. And, at the same time, Israel has been doing exactly the same fucking thing for 20-odd years now; from 2008 through 2020, more than 120,000 Palestinians–mostly non-combatants–were wounded or killed by the Israeli military. In that same time period, 6,000 Israelis were wounded or killed by Palestinian militants.
Israel can not claim to be a democracy, because they refuse to give Palestinians a voice in government at all.
As an aside, the parallels between how Israel has treated Palestinians, and how the US has treated Native Americans is uncomfortable.
I’m not sure I’d call Israel a terrorist state, but absolutely an apartheid state. […] Israel can not claim to be a democracy, because they refuse to give Palestinians a voice in government at all.
There are two million Arab citizens of Israel, the vast majority of whom are Muslim. They vote. There are Arab Muslims in the Knesset.
This is a somewhat different situation from that of blacks in apartheid South Africa, who were denied civil rights on the basis of their race and ancestry.
I’m not saying Israeli society treats Arab Israeli citizens fairly or that there isn’t social discrimination. I haven’t been there; and from all reports there certainly is. But I think you’re exaggerating … or else understating how bad “actual” (South African) apartheid was.
Given that Israelis can, and do, burn out Palestinians in the occupied areas in order to seize their land, and Israeli authorities do nothing, and even help the arsonists, I don’t think that I’m overstating that. Moreover, the Arab voices in the Knesset are a minuscule minority; I think it’s something like a total of 5 seats, while Likud and their far-right allies have 63 seats.
The same thing’s happening in Canada with the CBC; bunch of people calling them out for not saying “terrorist” implying it means they’re in favour of the attacks, when CBC simply has a policy of not saying that about anyone, because it’s not their job.
I just listened to a cbc segment that had a jew on saying to escalate, innocent civilians be damned. And yes, I hear JT call out Hamas as terrorists. We’re going to support a genocide if that’s what Isreal decides to do.
Best example comes to us via the BBC above, during WW2 they never called the Nazis wicked or evil, but they did not and did not need to have Nazi-apologists on air to present a “fair and balanced” view Fox-News style.
As long as you present opinion as opinion and reporting as reporting and refrain from loaded language in your reporting you’re perfectly fine. Could it be better? Yes. But while you might not have arrived at “morally good”, you have clearly left “morally bad”.
Is this true? I was sure when Jeremy Corbyn criticised Israel, he was labelled as a terrorist sympathiser and anti-semite by the state media.
Just as a disclaimer, I can’t really remember and was never particularly interested in English politics at this time, so I have no opinions on Corbyn, or know if he really did make anti-semetic comments or not. I do remember the tabloid papers going wild on this, I was sure the BBC voiced this or allowed guests to voice this all the time.
Sometimes it’s not a big difference. Using several different quotes in one article, all of which use the word ‘terrorist’ or other emotionally loaded words, is a clear indication that they think he’s a terrorist whilst technically remaining ‘neutral’ because they’re only quoting rather than forming a position
So, basically: people performed atrocities. Are they evil? Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, the BBC has no idea whether it is evil to perform atrocities. Right.
They are saying they do not use language that makes judgement, because that is not what they do. They are a neutral reporter of what is happening in the world (ie the news).
Everyone laments that “news” has been overrun by opinion journalism that tries to influence left or right. This is what “just news” looks like.
So basically, you can’t read above a 2nd grade level.
BBC is saying they report the facts and let people make their own judgements. I know this might be hard for your biased mind to understand, but the word ‘terrorist’ has been thrown around so much it’s practically meaningless. Heck, even when it should be applied (American terrorists shooting substations), it isn’t. It’s a political term at this point, nothing more.
You’re trying to advocate for news outlets to tell us how to think instead of showing us information, which is shitty journalism for idiots.
Show the information that this was a terrorist attack, because it was. That’s an indisputable fact. Indiscriminately killing, maiming, torturing and raping civilians to spread terror. That is terrorism.
I still can’t understand why naming Hamas a terrorist group goes against their “present only the facts” view. It’s the same group that raped and killed civilians just six days ago. They posted videos of their horrid raid on the internet and plan to stream hostage executions. These are facts, it is not subjective. Isn’t this the plain definition of terrorism? Why is BBC reluctant to brand a group that performs acts of terror as terrorists? This goes for how they treated IRA stories as well. I really can’t see how this adheres to good journalism principles, unlike many people here seem to be praising. It just seems to me a weird hill to die on.
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