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.
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.
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”.