Israel, Hamas, and the BBC

I feel the need to say something. Not to speak runs the risk of allowing evil to take root.

I share these reflections from the depths of shock and grief over Hamas’s murderous campaign on Saturday 7th October 2023 which has left 1000+ Israeli citizens dead and many others injured and traumatised.

And also anticipating the inevitable Israeli response taking its toll not just on Hamas and its supporters but on Gaza Strip civilians who do not support Hamas and are subject to their rule.

One weeps with those who weep.

There is something quite indefensible, despicable, and distinctly cowardly in using military firepower against defenceless men, women, children, babies, and animals. The massacres at the Supernova Music festival in which 250+ young partygoers were slaughtered, and at Kfar Azar, leaving 100+ grandparents, parents, children, babies, dead, some burned in their homes, and some children and babies beheaded, were barbaric and sickening.

War is evil enough, but even in the depths of war, there are limits. Hamas and its supporters have ignored those limits and revelled in the ‘triumph’ of the attacks, celebrating publicly – even on the streets of London - the massacres, jubilant at the flow of Jewish blood, and the capture and abduction of Israeli citizens. This is unspeakably evil and shameful.

Hamas’s actions, like Al-Qaida’s 9-11 attack, are despicable and cannot be justified, whatever the grievances held, legitimate or not. To convert grievance into hatred and hatred into targeting rockets and bullets against defenceless civilians is beneath contempt.

One weeps with those who weep

If I held any hope that Hamas could rule the Gaza Strip for the sake of its citizens and interact with Israel to forge some kind of peaceful co-existence, this has been shattered and irrevocably torn to shreds. The world now waits to see whether the Israeli military response will succeed in uprooting Hamas, which appears to be the aim.

But, in terms of respect, I feel I must address an institution far closer to home. The BBC. Our BBC.

I am ashamed now to pay the Licence fee.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation which has carried out a shocking massacre of Israeli life on Israeli soil and the BBC continues to use the word ‘militant’ to describe Hamas instead of ‘terrorist’. The distinction is important. This is not a time to downplay, contextualise, politicise, or dilute the horror of the events of last Saturday. This was a pre-determined, pre-planned, pre-rehearsed attack as part of the overall strategy of the terrorist organisation called Hamas to execute vile terrorism on Israeli soil against unarmed civilians, Jews.

What to pray? What to hope for? I sit in silence before God

I call upon BBC journalists to refuse to cooperate with their editorial chiefs and use the word terrorist where it is the only appropriate and accurate word to describe premeditated military attacks on defenceless citizens.

And that, surely, includes the attack and twin massacres carried out by Hamas on Saturday 7th October in Israel.

What to pray? What to hope for? I sit in silence before God. He hears our inability to find words. The mute longing for grief and suffering not to be prolonged. For human hearts in Gaza, in Israel, to find courage, to grow beyond any ideologies of hatred, to limit the justification of retribution as a way of defining life and the future. And, in time, to displace war in favour of mercy and a deep desire to live in peace with one's neighbours.