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.
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Wikipedia is a lawmaking body?
I think you are missing the point.
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Law is not some immutable force. Many countries have laws.
In some of those countries, Hamas is a designated terrorist organization. In others, it is not, and even considered and ally (or has been previously, such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Qatar, Syria).
Hamas its self is a government. They have their own laws. So whose laws should we defer to?
The point is that who is or isn’t a terrorist depends on the context and point of view you are speaking from.
There is no universality in that kind of word, and so its appropriate that the BBC isn’t using it.
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I get the emotionalism behind this moment. But words matter. This was a state sponsored effort.
If there is any delineation between a terrorist act and state violence, it should be the existence of a state.
A state exists, Palestine. This was a state action, not a terrorist action. It was an act of open war, but not an act of terrorism. That’s a different thing.
Definitions and words matter. It can’t be “Everything I hate is terrorism”. Look at how the American right has done this with the word ‘fascism’ (largely to obscure their clearly fascistic approaches).
What Hamas did was not an act of terrorism. They have done that previously. This was an act of war.
So how far did you get in this article? Did you see the title and go into rage posting or did you actually read it?
This dude writes 50 comments a day on multiple accounts. From what I’ve seen they are completely filled with hatred and spitefulness and their personal conviction is more important than deliberation or compassion. It must be exhausting.
The UN doesn’t, according to your own source.
Critically, though, not the U.N. I linked to the same thing above before I saw your comment but came to a different conclusion. I personally call them terrorists but I’m not a journalist trying to be impartial on a global network. I think it’s fine for the BBC to just say which countries do label them terrorists without taking a side.
Kinda weird that New Zealand takes the time to differentiate calling the political arm of Hamas not terrorists and the militant arm of Hamas (Qassam Brigades) terrorists. Maybe someone should look into why.