I wonder how long a group can claim to be campaigning in favour of human rights and against racism while simultaneously supporting a terrorist group that is so against them. The Electronic Intifada campaigns against Israel in just about every way imaginable. But when it comes to campaigning in favour of Palestinians and their human rights things get a little tricky for them.
They’re big on campaigning against the BBC as being biased in favour of Israel, they’re big on hyperbole when it comes to the Israeli Defence Force, throwing words like “massacre” and “genocide” around liberally. But when it comes to Hamas all they can think of to do is defend, defend, defend. Such as here where they complain about the fact that Egypt’s El Sisi wishes to prevent the Sinai from becoming the same terrorist haven it was under Morsi.
You’d have thought that an organization campaigning so hard for Palestinians would have paid some attention to summary executions of Palestinians by Hamas. but you’d be wrong. One might also think there’d be at least a whimper of criticism for the Hamas leaders who ducked down deep underground and allowed Gazans to suffer the fallout of their own catastrophic policies but, again, you’d be wrong.
This is because it’s not about helping Palestinians it’s about attacking Israel. It seems that Hamas aren’t the only ones willing to fight Israel to the last Gazan, hoping that Israel will give up first. But what’s got me going is the sheer nonsense involved in arguing that the Beeb is guilty of prejudice in their reporting in favour of Israel. Arguing that the people on the BBC who take positions in favour of Israel in the various debates and panels they have strikes me as ludicrous. Yet these are arguments they make nonetheless.
I wonder how many people reading this can think of instances where they saw blatant BBC bias against Israel. Feel free to link to your examples below. Off the top of my head I am thinking of their link to Richard Silverstein’s blog when he thought he had a secret war plan. Naturally the BBC ended up with egg on its face when it was revealed to be nonsensical.
I wonder if Electronic Intifada figure that if they keep pushing the BBC they’ll manage to get anyone with a pro Israel viewpoint off the air.
In other anti-Israel news, Mehdi Hasan wrote a stalwart defence of Hamas in the Huffington Post the other day. You knew it was going to be a stalwart defence because at the start he says the following;
“Let’s be clear: I’m no fan of Hamas, a brutal and anti-Semitic group which has been accused by Amnesty International and other NGOs of human rights abuses against the people of Gaza and of war crimes against the people of Israel. Firing rockets into civilian areas isn’t justified under international law, even if it is framed as part of a (legitimate) struggle against foreign military occupation.”
When Mehdi puts that at the start you can pretty much guarantee you’re about to read an apologia. I was not disappointed. Despite promising to provide
“fact-filled, evidence-based rebuttals to the 11 main myths, half-truths and self-serving ‘talking points’ that are repeatedly pushed by various Israeli spokespersons, both on the airwaves and on social media”
We get 11 points that contain links to many op-ed pieces (written by Jews, you know for when you need that extra bit of cover) and many many words like; “apparently”, “appears to have been”, “May also have”, “points to” contained within. I would have thought that when promising facts, Mehdi would provide facts rather than conjecture provided by a bunch of other organizations and individuals. More to the point it strikes me as bizarre to begin an article attacking a terrorist organization only to go on to write an entire article arguing in their favour.
Mehdi’s not off on everything he says, but that’s not the point. Don’t pretend you’re offering people facts about Israel when what you’re really doing is offering other people’s conjecture.
I would imagine that someone who both despises Hamas and wants to do something to help Gazans would be more interested in attacking the war as well as the clerical, fascist rule of Hamas rather than merely paying lip service to the fact that they’re terrorists while going on to launch an offensive against Israel. Guess that’s just me though.
