[News] BBC interview with Hamas deputy chief is a case study in state propaganda

Fri Oct 4 11:45:22 EDT 2024

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BBC interview with Hamas deputy chief is a case study in state propaganda
Jonathan Cook
October 4, 2024
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The BBC no longer bothers to hide the fact that its news service acts as
nothing more than the British state's willing propaganda channel.

Last night on the News at Ten, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen secured a
rare interview <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cdd4rpv5jp0o> with
Hamas’s deputy political chief, Khalil al-Hayya.

Anchor Clive Myrie introduced the segment by warning: "Many will find his
comments abhorrent." But the only person making abhorrent assertions was
Myrie himself, observing that, in the interview, the Hamas leader “claims
the Palestinian people have faced violence at the hands of Israel for
several decades”.

No, Clive. The world's highest court, the International Court of Justice,
as well as every major human rights organisation, has concluded that
Israel’s belligerent military occupation of the Palestinians’ territory is
illegal and violent – not as a claim, but as an indisputable fact.

Israel's refusal to recognise a Palestinian state and allow Palestinians
self-determination; Israel’s building of hundreds of illegal settlements on
Palestinian land and the transfer of Israeli Jews, often militia groups,
into those settlements; Israel’s 17-year siege of Gaza; and Israel's
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.

Next, Myrie required Bowen to justify at length why the BBC was allowing a
Hamas *political* leader – not a military leader – to be given air time.
Note, al-Hayya's 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.

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' side of
the story.

So what did al-Hayya say that was so “abhorrent”? Here are the main points
al-Hayya raised in the interview – you can listen to his precise wording
via this link <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cdd4rpv5jp0o> – under
Bowen’s mainly hostile questioning:

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's radar, and had decided it could do so only
through military action.

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.

3. Israel, not Hamas, is the party responsible for destroying Gaza as
evidenced through its bombardments of schools, shelters and hospitals.
Hamas' killing of 1,200 people could not be used to justify Israel killing
more than 50,000 people in Gaza. Israel is “motivated by the lust to
destroy”.

4. The accusation that Hamas uses the people of Gaza as “human shields” is
not true. “They [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... It is all Israeli propaganda.”

5. Netanyahu is the one obstructing a ceasefire. Even if Hamas surrendered
today, Gaza's next generation would take up the struggle because the
Palestinian people want their freedom and have a legitimate right to resist
the occupation. “People need to understand that Israel wants to burn the
whole region.”

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.

7. It is Israel trying to eliminate the Palestinian people, not the
Palestinians destroying Israel. “Give us our rights, give us a fully
sovereign Palestinian state… Israel does not recognise a one-state solution
or a two-state solution. Israel rejects it all.”

8. [*Responding to a question about whether he considers himself a
terrorist*] “I'm seeking freedom and defending my people. To the
occupation, we are all terrorists – the leaders, the women and the
children. You heard what Israeli leaders called us: we are all animals."

Now, one can debate whether al-Hayya's statements are accurate or truthful,
or whether he is being sincere. But nothing at all he says here can be
viewed as "abhorrent" – unless you are shilling for Israel. He deplores
attacks on civilians, he accuses Israel of bringing about Gaza’s
destruction, he blames Netanyahu for blocking a ceasefire, and he appears
to be ready to settle for a two-state solution, though he doesn't believe
Israel will agree to it.

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 “plausible genocide” Netanyahu has incited and
overseen. Not that the BBC ever mentions either fact.

And yet the state broadcaster never prefaces remarks from Netanyahu or
other Israeli leaders – such as the self-declared fascist finance minister,
Bezalel Smotrich – with any kind of warning, let alone one that many
viewers may find their remarks “abhorrent”.

And while we are at it, if al-Hayya’s remarks are the yardstick, how was
Keir Starmer’s comment that Israel had a right to deprive Palestinian
civilians of food, water and fuel – that is, to collectively punish them by
starving them to death – not also deemed “abhorrent” by the BBC?

What becomes ever harder to deny is that the BBC isn’t 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.

*[**Many thanks to Matthew Alford <https://drmattalford.substack.com/> for
the audio reading of this article.**]*

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