It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn, writes the BBC's World Affairs editor.

Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that’s their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.

The key point is that we don’t say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.

As it happens, of course, many of the people who’ve attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it’s not as though we’re hiding the truth in any way - far from it.

Any reasonable person would be appalled by the kind of thing we’ve seen. It’s perfectly reasonable to call the incidents that have occurred “atrocities”, because that’s exactly what they are.

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.

  • @alienanimals
    43•1 year ago

    Both sides are religious fanatics. But people don’t like it when you state the truth about their side.

    • Neato
      17•1 year ago

      Religion is the excuse. Very rarely are conflicts actually driven by religious differences. Most of the time it’s just plain power-hungry people trying to gain power over another group, seize land, gain wealth, etc. Religion is great for galvanizing the masses, though.

      • @[email protected]
        5•1 year ago

        Religion is also the means. Are you an ancient Egyptian ruler, who is fed up with having to deal and align with all the temples? Just introduce monotheism, insist you are sent by god, and voila: almost unlimited power.

        • Neato
          3•1 year ago

          Just introduce monotheism, insist you are sent by god, and voila: almost unlimited power.

          Well about that…

          As a pharaoh, Akhenaten is noted for abandoning Egypt’s traditional polytheism and introducing Atenism, or worship centered around Aten. … This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten’s monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers compiled by later pharaohs.[16]

          It’s hard to say whys on stuff that old, but a lot of historians consider this to be a move that was or became vastly unpopular.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
      12•1 year ago

      Nah, Hamas are religious fanatics but the Israeli govt are Nationalist fanatics, they lean more on the ethnic identity of judaism than the religious identity. Might not seem like a big difference but apparently Israel’s founders almost fought a civil war over this so probably worth remembering lol

    • @AllonzeeLV
      6•1 year ago

      “My version of Winnie the Pooh has a bigger dick than yours!”

      “I’ll kill you for believing that!”

      sigh…