I have lost count of the number of times the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) has been accused of anti-Israel bias.
But I have not lost sight of why.
The latest example is this January 21 “information” piece (you’ll see why I used quotation marks very quickly) titled “What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?
Here, unedited and in its entirety, is the section titled “What is Hamas and what are its goals?”:
Hamas started as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987. Its name means Islamic Resistance Movement.
It is opposed to the existence of Israel on what it says is Palestinian land. It wants a state based on Islam in its place and across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
It has, however, signalled its willingness to accept an interim Palestinian state in just the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, without renouncing its claim to all of historic Palestine.
Before the 7 October attacks, Hamas was estimated to have about 30,000 fighters, but Israel said in August that its forces had killed more than 17,000 of them. This can’t be independently verified.
Hamas has been the sole ruler in the Gaza Strip since 2007, after winning Palestinian elections and violently ousting rivals.
Well, there you go. All those nice hamas folks want is a country of their own. And while they think all of “historic Palestine” should be included, they’re just fine with an interim two-state solution. And those damn Israelis claim to have killed more than half of their fighters. Those bastards.
Somehow, though, this “information piece” managed to leave out the contents of hamas’ own covenant; the one it issued in 1988 and has never renounced so much as one word of.
Here are some – not by any means all – of what the BBC article somehow overlooked when it told readers what hamas was:
The second paragraph of the charter:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
The fifth paragraph of the introduction:
This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.
The last part of Article 7:
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“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).
Article 8:
Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.
Article 11, first paragraph:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?
Article 13, first two paragraphs:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. “Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know.”
Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?
Translation: what hamas wants is Israel obliterated, all Jews (NOT just Israeli Jews but ALL Jews) dead, and it rejects any negotiations of any kind.
That is what the BBC somehow overlooked.
Anyone still wondering why the BBC is accused of anti-Israel bias?
On the assumption that whoever is reading this has not had a recent lobotomy, I will assume the answer is no.
