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.
No its not, they are legally considered terrorists and are on the same list as ISIS or the Taliban.
UK Parliament added Hamas on the list of proscribed terrorist organizations in 2021. Press release here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/islamist-terrorist-group-hamas-banned-in-the-uk
The EU have them listed as well (didn’t bother checking since when).
The US has listed them since 1997 (US Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control is the agency in charge of sanctions enforcement).
So yeah.
Legally.
For better or (and very clearly) for worse, Hamas has been the government in Palestinian since 2006.
Either laws and governments matter, or they don’t.
You don’t get to have it both ways.
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.
The well known phrase is “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. I Imagine from their point of view, Israel is the ‘terrorist’ group, routinely bombing apartment buildings etc and that their actions are a proportionate counter (recent events nonwithstanding!)
Both sides of the current conflict have/are committing atrocities, but the reporting of those atrocities should be as factual and unbiased as possible.
The best way I’ve heard it described is that they both view the other group of people as existential evil. Far beyond enemies, something which is evil just for existing. Not just the militaries, but the nation, race, state, religion, whatever classification. With that viewpoint, any action you take can be justified. Just as nobody would think twice about killing a million mosquito larvae in a country that has thousands die from malaria, killing a few thousand of the other side is morally neutral at worst.
This is going to continue to be horrific for a while.
The freedom fighters that behead babies, rape woman and abduct people… Oh and also rocketstrike civilians in general…
If you believe in their “freedom” feel free to go there.
Journalists should never label a group of people with an adjective. It’s Journalism 101. Your writing should be free of personal bias and report the facts and quoted statements. No assumptions are allowed.
Lmao what? Terrorists isn’t a adjective. And its not a personal bias its a fact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_groups
Sorry that my source did not invent the usage, the word or language itself.
The U.S., U.K., E.U., and others designate them as a terrorist group but the U.N. does not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_groups
The reality is that they’re the militant faction of the de facto government of a quasi-state under Israeli occupation. It is complicated so the BBC just says who thinks they’re a terrorist group. That seems reasonable for journalists striving to be neutral.
“Everybody wants to occupy ‘the holy land’ and everyone who is taking part of that sucks”
While Israel has been basically a terrorist state, attacking Palestinians nonchalant, bombing civilian districts, and Hamas has grown in number, also basically being a terrorist state (the iron dome exists for a reason), it feels like we are forgetting that this whole argument comes down to religious rights. The argument will never end. The conflict will never end. Both groups are thumping their book claiming it’s their land. The war will go on for centuries until there’s nothing left to claim. That’s how religious war works, unless some other great motivator stops it.
The war will go on for centuries until there’s nothing left to claim
The US is older than Israel. My grandfather is older than Israel and he’s still alive. There was no state of Israel in 1920 and the Jewish population in the region was ~11%. This hasn’t been going on for centuries. It’s been going on for century.
They have the right to call them whatever they want, that doesn’t make it correct.
That just is not the point. I mean, if you are involved in the conflict you can totally believe in anything, but the point is in the moment you call them terrorist and call it a day you lost any possibility to analyze the situation and understand WTF is happening and why.
BBC is not saying they are NOT terrorists, but it does not matter in this context.
It’s pretty ballsy to start using an alt with the same name as the last account you got banned under…
How long you think this one will last?
Nope.
You’re banned from all of lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/u/CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works
And admittedly using a bunch of alts to circumvent it and keep posting the bullshit that got you banned.
