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.

  • mindlight
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    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.

    • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      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.

      • mindlight
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

    • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      Yeah but in that case:

      US government and Canadian are terrorists (look at their list of war crimes against civilians, genocide of native Americans, kidnapping and “re-educating” native children for ethnic cleansing). The US independence war literally got kicked off by torturing civilian tax collectors by ripping their skin off after dragging them through the streets

      Israel is a terrorist state (genocide against a specific ethnic group definitely fits this definition even if they just did it for expansionism, that is a political goal and there are 36000 that Israel has killed directly on the low end, including over 224 civilian humanitarian aid workers and 179 civilian unwra workers)

      Hamas is a terrorist organization

      Dole is a terrorist organization (banana republics, Hawaii)

      Many police organizations nowadays are terrorists (constant violence against innocent civilians), especially in the US

      Belgium is a terrorist state (Congo anyone?)

      France is a terrorist state (they have a special police battalion hand picked for violence against civilians lol)

      Russian army is a terrorist org (talk about violence against civilians, they have wiped out so many villages and just killed and dumped the population)

      Hell, Britain is a terrorist org (Kenya atrocities like the chuka massacre, the Irish???, Iraq & Afganistan?? BBC themselves reported how the British government was covering up their forces killing and torture of civilians and children in the middle east)

      The point is that a news org can’t (or shouldn’t) just cherry pick who they want to label terrorists because that, no matter which way you slice it, will be political bias. Their own government has committed many, MANY acts of terror very recently.

      • mindlight
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 month ago

        No. Not “in that case”.

        Fact: Hamas commits and have committed acts of terrorism and therefore Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It doesn’t matter what other countries have committed terrorist acts now or 100 years ago. There is no connection or dependencies.

        Hamas is a terrorist organisation because of them committing acts of terrorism. End of story.

        When BBC is asked to call Belgium a terrorist start you’re free to discuss that there. In that thread I will happily claim that Hamas is innocent to whatever Leo did in Africa.