The BBC has blundered: call Hamas what it is, a terrorist organisation

Let us not waste time. The concerted Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October were “terrorism”. The mass killing, wounding, torture and hostage-taking of civilians are well within the definition provided, for example, by the liberal Washington Post: “terrorism — an attack by non-state actors against civilians to inspire fear.”

The military response by forces acting on behalf of the state of Israel is not the same thing, although there may be equivalence or imbalance in terms of the lives lost by both sides.

In common with other mainstream broadcasters, the BBC’s “business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds”, in the words of its highly distinguished World Affairs Editor, John Simpson. But the BBC is mistaken to be squeamish about the use of the definitional term “terror” and its derivatives. By declining the Defence Secretary Grant Shapps’s challenge to “call a spade, a spade,” the BBC is doing what my friend John said it should not. It is “taking sides” by default and actually depriving viewers of factual information.

Equally importantly the BBC is carelessly handing ammunition to those now attempting to undermine the tradition of “due impartiality” and “due accuracy” in British broadcast news. That culture has been one of the best things about the UK and I believe it is now under threat from overtly partisan news outlets, egged on by politicians seeking advantage and enrichment, and permitted by supine regulators.

The BBC’s well-meaning guidelines are wrong about “terror”. But the intentions of those making an issue of its mistake are clear. They want to accuse the BBC of leftwing bias and to intimidate it to abandon “impartiality” and to take their side instead, or to legitimise others doing so.

The guidelines sent to us at Times Radio by the programme director Tim Levell are straightforward: “For the avoidance of doubt, we can and should call Hamas a terrorist organisation / and terrorists.  Also, Saturday morning’s raids were terror attacks.  The UK government has proscribed Hamas as a terror organisation.”

This involves no additional value judgement by the station or by presenters like me. My choice is to say versions of “terror” when they are useful words but not to dwell on it for the sake of it or to spray it about indiscriminately to stir up passions. Sky and ITV News have adopted similar policies.

The BBC’s error is that in seeking to stay out of controversy it has imposed a value judgement by not applying the accurate term. The BBC’s editorial guidelines, last updated in 2019, state that words relating to “terror” and “terrorism” are “emotive” and have “significant political overtones”. For those reasons it stipulates that “we should not use the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution” because it is “a barrier rather than an aid to understanding”.

I am baffled why the BBC considers that the words it advises for use instead – “such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’, and ‘militant’” – are any less loaded or pejorative than “terrorist”.

It would be a calumny to imply that the BBC is falling back on the old cliché: “One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”. As Michelle Hussein pointed out in her forceful exchange with Shapps, it has reported “atrocities, the dead, the injured and the survivors”. Simpson himself is “appalled” by the “atrocities” stating “no one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies – not on innocent, peace-loving people”.  Yes John, there is one word for that: terrorism. As Stig Abell, breakfast presenter on Times Radio, suggested to listeners, banning “terror” is “just simply wrong and adding unnecessary complexity.”

Our audiences know what Terror is. The IRA, Red Army Faction, Al Qaeda, PLO are just some of the non-state killers who have made sure of that. Individuals can make up their own judgements about it and their own comparisons with wars waged by governments. News organisations reporting facts and arguments should avoid taking positions about what is “justified” and “unjustified” that should be obvious.

The public knows that some former “terrorists” sometimes become respected politicians. Menachem Begin became the Prime Minister of Israel. Yasser Arafat was President of the Palestinian National Authority, Nelson Mandela President of South Africa and Martin McGuinness Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

This is one reason why news broadcasters should report the Prime Minister’s views that “there are not two sides, there is no question of balance” and that “we stand with Israel”. It is not our job to propagandise for it with US cable TV-style style banner headlines designed to enforce prejudice rather than give information. It is noticeable that some of the partisan newspapers loudly castigating the BBC and calling for the display of the Israeli flag in support on public buildings, have yet to put one in their mastheads, as they do poppies at Remembrance Time.

Words and symbols need to be handled carefully, especially at dreadful times such as these. Not every news consumer will be satisfied. The Prime Minister likened the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians to “a pogrom”. Pro-Palestinian spokespeople go unchallenged when they use the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe Israel’s warning to evacuate the northern half of the Gaza Strip. The mass pro-Palestinian demonstration in London heard chants for the removal of Jews “from the river to the sea”. Such emotive references to history can only inflame the situation, especially when not justified by evolving circumstances. Israelis and Palestinians have lived side-by-side since 1948 – admittedly by no means always happily. BBC and Sky are characterising this as an “Israel-Hamas War”, not a war with Palestinians.

British news media have reported an upsurge in antisemitic incidents following the Hamas attacks. The link between anti-Semitism and Middle East politics is something which self-appointed champions of both Israel and the Palestinians find it convenient to deny. At calmer times I have twice been the subject of social media pile-ons for my observations. I asked the Chief Rabbi if he thought increased antisemitism was related to the policies of the Israeli government. He did not mind the question, many others did. On another occasion, I caused outrage for pointing out, accurately, that the Edgeware Road where two identifiably Jewish men were attacked, was a largely Middle Eastern quarter of central London.

Social media have made polarisation and pile-ons easy. Some media organisations are gleefully joining in. It is easy to confect controversy and it may attract eyeballs. It is not useful news.  A self-important and bad call by the BBC does not invalidate all the painstaking reporting by the corporation’s news teams. Nor should it be used to downgrade British broadcasting’s vital commitment to provide unbiased news to the public. Nonetheless, we should call terrorism terrorism when we see it.

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