{"id":296115,"date":"2024-10-05T07:22:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T07:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=296115"},"modified":"2024-10-07T08:12:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T08:12:17","slug":"bbc-interview-with-hamas-deputy-chief-is-a-case-study-in-state-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=296115","title":{"rendered":"BBC Interview with Hamas Deputy Chief Is a Case Study in State Propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Cook \u2013 jonathan-cook.net\/ Oct 4, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

News at Ten warns \u201cMany will find his comments abhorrent\u201d as Khalil al-Hayya deplores attacks on Israeli civilians, urges a ceasefire and seems ready for a two-state solution<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The BBC no longer bothers to hide the fact that its news service acts as nothing more than the British state\u2019s willing propaganda channel.<\/p>\n

Last night on the News at Ten, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen secured a rare interview<\/a> with Hamas\u2019s deputy political chief, Khalil al-Hayya.<\/p>\n

Anchor Clive Myrie introduced the segment by warning: \u201cMany will find his comments abhorrent.\u201d But the only person making abhorrent assertions was Myrie himself, observing that, in the interview, the Hamas leader \u201cclaims the Palestinian people have faced violence at the hands of Israel for several decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

No, Clive. The world\u2019s highest court, the International Court of Justice, as well as every major human rights organisation, has concluded that Israel\u2019s belligerent military occupation of the Palestinians\u2019 territory is illegal and violent \u2013 not as a claim, but as an indisputable fact.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s refusal to recognise a Palestinian state and allow Palestinians self-determination; Israel\u2019s building of hundreds of illegal settlements on Palestinian land and the transfer of Israeli Jews, often militia groups, into those settlements; Israel\u2019s 17-year siege of Gaza; and Israel\u2019s collective punishment of the Palestinian people to force them to submit to these indignities, are all forms of structural violence. Again, that is not a claim. It is how international law judges what Israel has done and is doing.<\/p>\n

Next, Myrie required Bowen to justify at length why the BBC was allowing a Hamas political<\/em> leader \u2013 not a military leader \u2013 to be given air time. Note, al-Hayya\u2019s boss, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated by Israel while he was involved in negotiations to bring about a ceasefire. Like some kind of gangster, Israel murdered the man on the other side of the table it was supposed to be talking to.<\/p>\n

The BBC provided none of that as context, of course, for its interview. It was too busy placating Israel and the British government by issuing apologies and warnings before it offered a rare insight into Hamas\u2019 side of the story.<\/p>\n

So what did al-Hayya say that was so \u201cabhorrent\u201d? Here are the main points al-Hayya raised in the interview \u2013 you can listen to his precise wording via this link<\/a> \u2013 under Bowen\u2019s mainly hostile questioning:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Hamas launched its attack on October 7 because the world had forgotten about Gaza even as Israel was slowly strangling the tiny territory to death through its 17-year siege. Hamas wanted to put Gaza back on the international community\u2019s radar, and had decided it could do so only through military action.<\/li>\n
  2. Hamas fighters had been told not to target Israeli civilians on October 7, only Israeli occupation soldiers. Hamas does not endorse harming civilians. However, there were failings by individuals in sticking to that plan.<\/li>\n
  3. Israel, not Hamas, is the party responsible for destroying Gaza as evidenced through its bombardments of schools, shelters and hospitals. Hamas\u2019 killing of 1,200 people could not be used to justify Israel killing more than 50,000 people in Gaza. Israel is \u201cmotivated by the lust to destroy\u201d.<\/li>\n
  4. The accusation that Hamas uses the people of Gaza as \u201chuman shields\u201d is not true. \u201cThey [Israel] destroyed mosques on the heads of their owners when there were no fighters. They destroyed houses and high-rise buildings when no one was in them\u2026 It is all Israeli propaganda.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Netanyahu is the one obstructing a ceasefire. Even if Hamas surrendered today, Gaza\u2019s next generation would take up the struggle because the Palestinian people want their freedom and have a legitimate right to resist the occupation. \u201cPeople need to understand that Israel wants to burn the whole region.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. The Palestinians need a state and self-determination, and the Palestinian refugees a right to return to their homeland, if the region is ever to calm down.<\/li>\n
  7. It is Israel trying to eliminate the Palestinian people, not the Palestinians destroying Israel. \u201cGive us our rights, give us a fully sovereign Palestinian state\u2026 Israel does not recognise a one-state solution or a two-state solution. Israel rejects it all.\u201d<\/li>\n
  8. [Responding to a question about whether he considers himself a terrorist<\/em>] \u201cI\u2019m seeking freedom and defending my people. To the occupation, we are all terrorists \u2013 the leaders, the women and the children. You heard what Israeli leaders called us: we are all animals.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now, one can debate whether al-Hayya\u2019s statements are accurate or truthful, or whether he is being sincere. But nothing at all he says here can be viewed as \u201cabhorrent\u201d \u2013 unless you are shilling for Israel. He deplores attacks on civilians, he accuses Israel of bringing about Gaza\u2019s destruction, he blames Netanyahu for blocking a ceasefire, and he appears to be ready to settle for a two-state solution, though he doesn\u2019t believe Israel will agree to it.<\/p>\n

    In fact, his comments are far, far more moderate and far less inflammatory than statements regularly made by Netanyahu and most of the Israeli political and military leadership. Netanyahu, remember, is being sought by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, while the country he leads is on trial for what its sister court, the ICJ, considers a \u201cplausible genocide\u201d Netanyahu has incited and overseen. Not that the BBC ever mentions either fact.<\/p>\n

    And yet the state broadcaster never prefaces remarks from Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders \u2013 such as the self-declared fascist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich \u2013 with any kind of warning, let alone one that many viewers may find their remarks \u201cabhorrent\u201d.<\/p>\n

    And while we are at it, if al-Hayya\u2019s remarks are the yardstick, how was Keir Starmer\u2019s comment that Israel had a right to deprive Palestinian civilians of food, water and fuel \u2013 that is, to collectively punish them by starving them to death \u2013 not also deemed \u201cabhorrent\u201d by the BBC?<\/p>\n

    What becomes ever harder to deny is that the BBC isn\u2019t reporting what is happening in the Middle East. It is aggressively framing it in such a way as to present Israel as the victim of events, and thereby assist it in carrying out a genocide in Gaza and beginning a second slaughter in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

    Support Jonathan<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The BBC isn\u2019t reporting what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Instead, it is aggressively framing events in such a way as to present Israel as the victim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":296117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,42,37,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296116,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296115\/revisions\/296116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/296117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}