6 ms·

Why the BBC doesn't call Hamas militants "terrorists"

45 points by monooso 3y ago

huytersd 3y ago
[flagged]
- rewmie 3y ago
  > I'd be out for blood too if (...) Irrelevant. This issue is about whether journalists should use loaded words.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Daviey 3y ago
    When you say "they started a war", are you talking about the six day war of 1967 or a different one?
  - beardyw 3y ago
    The question I always ask.: which part of your country would you give up to avoid conflict?
    - raxxorraxor 3y ago
      If you start and lose a war, it just may not be completely up to you. There is landgrab by Israel concerning the West Bank, but that is another topic and doesn't in the slightest justify the reactions of Hamas.
  - munksbeer 3y ago
    > They didn't accept the existence of Israel and started a war For all the complexities in this situation that is probably because for hundreds of years prior to Britain taking control of Palestine, it was occupied by those people. Once Britain assumed control, the agenda was set to make this a Jewish homeland and the process of mass immigration began and then the forced division and removal of Palestinians from areas they'd occupied for generations. Obviously that isn't going back even further, where the situation gets even more complex, but if people just stick to facts rather than get emotional, it is pretty understandable why Palestinians to this day believe they were conquered and removed from their land by force.
    - raxxorraxor 3y ago
      But then they need to be confronted with the truth. Jews lived there too and they even bought large amounts of it. They also were persecuted and driven away in most of the Arab world. Look at a map of Isreal and the many Arab countries from that time. The tiny spec of Israel is responsible for the expulsions in that area? Of course the overall behavior doesn't justify any other instance, but it really doesn't sound too convincing. This is a lie that too many, even supposedly educated westenerns, from expensive universities seem to start to believe. Israel isn't free from flaws but doesn't need to hide at all.
      - munksbeer 3y ago
        I apologise but I'm not really able to understand most of what you're saying above. I'm not suggesting that the Jewish people don't have a right to exist or have their own state, but that the the geographies and boundaries across the entire world have been subject to many invasions, genocide, ethnic cleansing. To the Palestinians, the generational memory is that about 100 years ago they were forcibly removed from land they had occupied for hundreds of years prior. To the Jewish people, their generational memory goes back thousands of years, suggesting that land originally belonged to them. Who is correct isn't even a solvable problem.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Canada's version of the Onion puts out a similar opinion quite well: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2023/10/spineless-fence-sitter-thinks-killing-children-is-bad-no-matter-who-does-it/ https://www.thebeaverton.com/2023/10/spineless-fence-sitter-...
tener 3y ago
I wish we had a LLM to BBC-ify the otherwise sensationalized reporting elsewhere. There would definitely be a market for this kind of service. For the reverse one as well, unfortunately.
- 19h 3y ago
  Pro-tip: ask Claude to "rewrite this article in a cynical tone" and you'll be never go back. Changed my entire consumption of news.
  - kreetx 3y ago
    It appears that Claude.ai is only available in US and UK at the moment.
  - porkbeer 3y ago
    Then you get the same spin, but obscured from you. Is that really better?
pushreply 3y ago
[flagged]
- monooso 3y ago
  You don't need to rely on nonsensical hearsay when there is freely available statistical information on the subject: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/cultural...
xeox538 3y ago
I dont care who does it. It fits the definition. So actually it is a stance of the BBC not to condem it. It alsmost is like they condone it now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism
- rewmie 3y ago
  > So actually it is a stance of the BBC not to condem it. I think you missed the whole point. The article states in no uncertain terms that "Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds." This goes against the use of loaded terms like "terrorist" because "Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally." Not using a loaded term to describe something does not mean "they condone it". There was a time when journalists were expected to present you with the facts and left you to think for yourself and make up your mind. It seems you have something against the latter.
  - xeox538 3y ago
    People taking a stance based on presented facts of having a opinion based on them because of complete or incomplete information also fine. But it defeats the purpose of having the definition in the first place. I am referring to the using violence against non-combatants mostly civilians with the aim of spreading fear. Never have I said anything of being pro whomever, only condemming the act with the intention of spreading fear. Just like there is fear of US dropping bombs on afgan houses as it is to having planes flying into buildings. It is the behavior not the party who does it.
    - mnky9800n 3y ago
      Then we should call USA a terrorist organisation. They have caused more harm than Hamas could ever dream of.
      - jjgreen 3y ago
        "Shock and awe" is a pretty good description of terror.
kalekold 3y ago
Four top lawyers in the UK have asked the regulatory authority to investigate. > In a letter to Ofcom, Lord Wolfson KC, Lord Pannick KC, Lord Grabiner KC and Jeremy Brier KC urged the regulator to investigate the corporation. > The authors of the letter said that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and “that is not a matter of debate or discussion. It is a matter of legal fact. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/bbc-not-calling-hamas-terrorists-ofcom-top-lawyers/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/bbc-not-calling-...
- monooso 3y ago
  Assuming you read the article, you appear to have missed the point. The BBC isn't saying that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, any more than they said the Nazis weren't evil during WWII. Impartiality is a founding principle of the organisation. The BBC presents the facts, the rest of us (including the aforementioned lawyers) can use those facts to form an opinion. As for the Telegraph article, just because the UK government has decided to classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation, it does make that description a universal fact. The BBC is a global organisation, not beholden to the opinion of the UK government, thankfully.
  - TacticalCoder 3y ago
    > The BBC isn't saying that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, any more than they said the Nazis weren't evil during WWII. They say they refuse to call it a terrorist organization, with weasel wording to try to hide their true colors. Here's the fact: there are 18% of israelis, with passport and nationality from isreal, who are palestinians (out of 21% of arabs living in Israel). How many percentage of jewish are living in Gaza? Not even percentage: just invididuals. How many jewish people are in Gaza? The answer is worse than 0: all the jewish people in Gaza are hostages. Israel is retaliating and killing a lot of people, but they're not beheading babies (which apparently Hamas really did) and they're not executing innocent teenager girls at point blank. They're not parading with dead innocent girls' naked bodies in pick-up trucks in Tel-Aviv. And the 18% of palestinian living in Israel are free people and not hostages. If you go out and kill teenagers (including non-jewish tourists) having fun at a music festival and behead babies, you're a terrorist organization. Hamas is a terrorist organization which has always lived with the anti-semitism at its roots and which want to see the state of Israel disappear. There's no open discussion about whether Hamas is a terrorist organization or not. The BBC showed their true color trying to pretend "people can make up their mind". What I'm sure though is that all the anti-semitic people reading / watching the BBC are very happy that the BBC refused to called Hamas for the terrorists they are.
benwad 3y ago
One thing I've been thinking about is how we use "terrorist" to describe groups rather than tactics. Governments maintain lists of "terror groups" which, as the article mentions, and everyone has a different idea of who belongs in there. But terrorism is about tactics: indiscriminate killing/maiming of civilians to inspire terror in a population. Lots of groups, including governments, have used these tactics. And they should be called out when they're used, no matter who by. Hamas and Israel have both used terror tactics at points in this war, and they should both be called out for it. But calling one group "terrorists" and the other group "just trying to protect their country" is just pure propaganda. I'm from the UK and noticed similar labelling in the Troubles. The Provisional IRA were a terrorist group, but when the British Army massacred a load of civilians, they didn't become a terrorist group.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > And they should be called out when they're used, no matter who by. I think you're unwittingly proving BBC's point. An objective journalist reports the facts, which means things like who did what to who. "Calling out" is not compatible with presenting an objective description of the facts. It's the opposite. It's communicating your personal conclusion and trying to attack something you made it your personal target because you disagree in terms of morality. That's not their responsibility. Their role is not to sneak their personal opinion alongside the objective facts. It's not their role in clear-cut, obvious examples such as a terrorist attack, and it's still not their role in more nuanced topics. If the reader is able to piece together their own ideas and opinions, why should that be spoon-fed to them?
  - benwad 3y ago
    When I say "calling out" I'm referring to labelling acts as terrorist acts. I probably could have used better wording. But this argument is all about trying to provide an objective description of the facts. I agree with the BBC here - calling a group a "terrorist group" is an editorial choice, even if we do have government list of terrorist groups. I'd say that the attacks on the music festival and villages near the fence easily qualify for the term "terrorism", but so does Israel's retaliatory bombing of civilian targets. We're still quibbling over definitions (which is IMO inevitable), but at least we're talking about actions, rather than entire groups.
bananapub 3y ago
the really story of course is that the UK establishment fundamentally doesn't like a non-compliant press, and so beating up the BBC about whatever they happen to think of is just par for the course.
xeox538 3y ago
The same could be said about a person stabbing someone to death. You could call it a incident. But if there was a clear intent it is called murder. Definition do matter. In above example you could argue a judge first has to declare someone guilty and I agree. In this particular case I "beleive" it is a statistically unrealistic scenario to not rule out bad intent. Thus fitting the definition. It is not about a matter of opinion, it is purely stating the fact of the act fitting the description of terrorism which I would argue isnt subjected to semantics of the vague aspects of the definition. Murder is still murder no matter who dun it.
daft_pink 3y ago
People who behead babies are monsters. Monster, terrorist, or war criminal this is really just a semantic argument, and most people don't care deeply about the difference. I understand that the BBC wants to use words precisely, because journalists really care about words. The reason why people find this article deeply offensive is because by writing an article about how Hamas militants are not "terrorists" and comparing them with the IRA, you are in essence defending absolute monster engaging in pure evil and the argument that they might be righteous in their activities is hyper offensive to many people. I feel BBC should simply not call them terrorists, but not engage in a debate about the definition of what they are and make compare them to other organizations as though they are equal to those organizations. Did the IRA behead a bunch of children?
friend_and_foe 3y ago
How refreshing. I wish more news publications saw it that way. It's not their job to tell me what to think. Of course, they're lying unfortunately. It's not some ethical stand to save the soul of journalism. The UK has a sizeable Muslim population and they're attempting to avoid the social fallout of backing a horse here. So they're staying neutral and dressing it up as journalistic ethics. Whatever gets you there I guess

45 points by monooso 3y ago

huytersd 3y ago

[flagged]

rewmie 3y ago
> I'd be out for blood too if (...) Irrelevant. This issue is about whether journalists should use loaded words.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
raxxorraxor 3y ago
[flagged]
- Daviey 3y ago
  When you say "they started a war", are you talking about the six day war of 1967 or a different one?
- beardyw 3y ago
  The question I always ask.: which part of your country would you give up to avoid conflict?
  - raxxorraxor 3y ago
    If you start and lose a war, it just may not be completely up to you. There is landgrab by Israel concerning the West Bank, but that is another topic and doesn't in the slightest justify the reactions of Hamas.
- munksbeer 3y ago
  > They didn't accept the existence of Israel and started a war For all the complexities in this situation that is probably because for hundreds of years prior to Britain taking control of Palestine, it was occupied by those people. Once Britain assumed control, the agenda was set to make this a Jewish homeland and the process of mass immigration began and then the forced division and removal of Palestinians from areas they'd occupied for generations. Obviously that isn't going back even further, where the situation gets even more complex, but if people just stick to facts rather than get emotional, it is pretty understandable why Palestinians to this day believe they were conquered and removed from their land by force.
  - raxxorraxor 3y ago
    But then they need to be confronted with the truth. Jews lived there too and they even bought large amounts of it. They also were persecuted and driven away in most of the Arab world. Look at a map of Isreal and the many Arab countries from that time. The tiny spec of Israel is responsible for the expulsions in that area? Of course the overall behavior doesn't justify any other instance, but it really doesn't sound too convincing. This is a lie that too many, even supposedly educated westenerns, from expensive universities seem to start to believe. Israel isn't free from flaws but doesn't need to hide at all.
    - munksbeer 3y ago
      I apologise but I'm not really able to understand most of what you're saying above. I'm not suggesting that the Jewish people don't have a right to exist or have their own state, but that the the geographies and boundaries across the entire world have been subject to many invasions, genocide, ethnic cleansing. To the Palestinians, the generational memory is that about 100 years ago they were forcibly removed from land they had occupied for hundreds of years prior. To the Jewish people, their generational memory goes back thousands of years, suggesting that land originally belonged to them. Who is correct isn't even a solvable problem.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Canada's version of the Onion puts out a similar opinion quite well: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2023/10/spineless-fence-sitter-thinks-killing-children-is-bad-no-matter-who-does-it/ https://www.thebeaverton.com/2023/10/spineless-fence-sitter-...

tener 3y ago

I wish we had a LLM to BBC-ify the otherwise sensationalized reporting elsewhere. There would definitely be a market for this kind of service. For the reverse one as well, unfortunately.

19h 3y ago
Pro-tip: ask Claude to "rewrite this article in a cynical tone" and you'll be never go back. Changed my entire consumption of news.
- kreetx 3y ago
  It appears that Claude.ai is only available in US and UK at the moment.
- porkbeer 3y ago
  Then you get the same spin, but obscured from you. Is that really better?

pushreply 3y ago

[flagged]

monooso 3y ago
You don't need to rely on nonsensical hearsay when there is freely available statistical information on the subject: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/cultural...

xeox538 3y ago

I dont care who does it. It fits the definition. So actually it is a stance of the BBC not to condem it. It alsmost is like they condone it now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

rewmie 3y ago
> So actually it is a stance of the BBC not to condem it. I think you missed the whole point. The article states in no uncertain terms that "Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds." This goes against the use of loaded terms like "terrorist" because "Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally." Not using a loaded term to describe something does not mean "they condone it". There was a time when journalists were expected to present you with the facts and left you to think for yourself and make up your mind. It seems you have something against the latter.
- xeox538 3y ago
  People taking a stance based on presented facts of having a opinion based on them because of complete or incomplete information also fine. But it defeats the purpose of having the definition in the first place. I am referring to the using violence against non-combatants mostly civilians with the aim of spreading fear. Never have I said anything of being pro whomever, only condemming the act with the intention of spreading fear. Just like there is fear of US dropping bombs on afgan houses as it is to having planes flying into buildings. It is the behavior not the party who does it.
  - mnky9800n 3y ago
    Then we should call USA a terrorist organisation. They have caused more harm than Hamas could ever dream of.
    - jjgreen 3y ago
      "Shock and awe" is a pretty good description of terror.

kalekold 3y ago

Four top lawyers in the UK have asked the regulatory authority to investigate. > In a letter to Ofcom, Lord Wolfson KC, Lord Pannick KC, Lord Grabiner KC and Jeremy Brier KC urged the regulator to investigate the corporation. > The authors of the letter said that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and “that is not a matter of debate or discussion. It is a matter of legal fact. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/bbc-not-calling-hamas-terrorists-ofcom-top-lawyers/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/bbc-not-calling-...

monooso 3y ago
Assuming you read the article, you appear to have missed the point. The BBC isn't saying that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, any more than they said the Nazis weren't evil during WWII. Impartiality is a founding principle of the organisation. The BBC presents the facts, the rest of us (including the aforementioned lawyers) can use those facts to form an opinion. As for the Telegraph article, just because the UK government has decided to classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation, it does make that description a universal fact. The BBC is a global organisation, not beholden to the opinion of the UK government, thankfully.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > The BBC isn't saying that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, any more than they said the Nazis weren't evil during WWII. They say they refuse to call it a terrorist organization, with weasel wording to try to hide their true colors. Here's the fact: there are 18% of israelis, with passport and nationality from isreal, who are palestinians (out of 21% of arabs living in Israel). How many percentage of jewish are living in Gaza? Not even percentage: just invididuals. How many jewish people are in Gaza? The answer is worse than 0: all the jewish people in Gaza are hostages. Israel is retaliating and killing a lot of people, but they're not beheading babies (which apparently Hamas really did) and they're not executing innocent teenager girls at point blank. They're not parading with dead innocent girls' naked bodies in pick-up trucks in Tel-Aviv. And the 18% of palestinian living in Israel are free people and not hostages. If you go out and kill teenagers (including non-jewish tourists) having fun at a music festival and behead babies, you're a terrorist organization. Hamas is a terrorist organization which has always lived with the anti-semitism at its roots and which want to see the state of Israel disappear. There's no open discussion about whether Hamas is a terrorist organization or not. The BBC showed their true color trying to pretend "people can make up their mind". What I'm sure though is that all the anti-semitic people reading / watching the BBC are very happy that the BBC refused to called Hamas for the terrorists they are.

benwad 3y ago

One thing I've been thinking about is how we use "terrorist" to describe groups rather than tactics. Governments maintain lists of "terror groups" which, as the article mentions, and everyone has a different idea of who belongs in there. But terrorism is about tactics: indiscriminate killing/maiming of civilians to inspire terror in a population. Lots of groups, including governments, have used these tactics. And they should be called out when they're used, no matter who by. Hamas and Israel have both used terror tactics at points in this war, and they should both be called out for it. But calling one group "terrorists" and the other group "just trying to protect their country" is just pure propaganda. I'm from the UK and noticed similar labelling in the Troubles. The Provisional IRA were a terrorist group, but when the British Army massacred a load of civilians, they didn't become a terrorist group.

rewmie 3y ago
> And they should be called out when they're used, no matter who by. I think you're unwittingly proving BBC's point. An objective journalist reports the facts, which means things like who did what to who. "Calling out" is not compatible with presenting an objective description of the facts. It's the opposite. It's communicating your personal conclusion and trying to attack something you made it your personal target because you disagree in terms of morality. That's not their responsibility. Their role is not to sneak their personal opinion alongside the objective facts. It's not their role in clear-cut, obvious examples such as a terrorist attack, and it's still not their role in more nuanced topics. If the reader is able to piece together their own ideas and opinions, why should that be spoon-fed to them?
- benwad 3y ago
  When I say "calling out" I'm referring to labelling acts as terrorist acts. I probably could have used better wording. But this argument is all about trying to provide an objective description of the facts. I agree with the BBC here - calling a group a "terrorist group" is an editorial choice, even if we do have government list of terrorist groups. I'd say that the attacks on the music festival and villages near the fence easily qualify for the term "terrorism", but so does Israel's retaliatory bombing of civilian targets. We're still quibbling over definitions (which is IMO inevitable), but at least we're talking about actions, rather than entire groups.

bananapub 3y ago

the really story of course is that the UK establishment fundamentally doesn't like a non-compliant press, and so beating up the BBC about whatever they happen to think of is just par for the course.

xeox538 3y ago

The same could be said about a person stabbing someone to death. You could call it a incident. But if there was a clear intent it is called murder. Definition do matter. In above example you could argue a judge first has to declare someone guilty and I agree. In this particular case I "beleive" it is a statistically unrealistic scenario to not rule out bad intent. Thus fitting the definition. It is not about a matter of opinion, it is purely stating the fact of the act fitting the description of terrorism which I would argue isnt subjected to semantics of the vague aspects of the definition. Murder is still murder no matter who dun it.

daft_pink 3y ago

People who behead babies are monsters. Monster, terrorist, or war criminal this is really just a semantic argument, and most people don't care deeply about the difference. I understand that the BBC wants to use words precisely, because journalists really care about words. The reason why people find this article deeply offensive is because by writing an article about how Hamas militants are not "terrorists" and comparing them with the IRA, you are in essence defending absolute monster engaging in pure evil and the argument that they might be righteous in their activities is hyper offensive to many people. I feel BBC should simply not call them terrorists, but not engage in a debate about the definition of what they are and make compare them to other organizations as though they are equal to those organizations. Did the IRA behead a bunch of children?

friend_and_foe 3y ago

How refreshing. I wish more news publications saw it that way. It's not their job to tell me what to think. Of course, they're lying unfortunately. It's not some ethical stand to save the soul of journalism. The UK has a sizeable Muslim population and they're attempting to avoid the social fallout of backing a horse here. So they're staying neutral and dressing it up as journalistic ethics. Whatever gets you there I guess