I guess not strictly news - but with all of the vitriol I have seen in discussions on the Israel situation, that have boiled down to arguments over wording, I feel that this take from the BBC is worthy of some discussion.
Mods, feel free to remove if this is not newsy enough.
UK Parliament added Hamas on the list of proscribed terrorist organizations in 2021. Press release here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/islamist-terrorist-group-hamas-banned-in-the-uk
The EU have them listed as well (didn’t bother checking since when).
The US has listed them since 1997 (US Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control is the agency in charge of sanctions enforcement).
So yeah.
Legally.
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No theyre not.
The Palestinian Authority is in charge of the West Bank and Hamas is “in charge” of Gaza (even tho Israel controls everything).
If you think Hamas is the government of Palestine, it actually makes sense. Israel loves pretending that’s true in the media. And probably the only reason they haven’t done anything about Hamas despite controlling every aspect of life in Gaza
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You didn’t have to give me a link showing me I’m right…
But you could edit your original comment now that you know.
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Yes.
Hamas is in control of Gaza “officially”.
Fatah is in control of the rest of Palestine. And they currently go by State of Palestine
So when you said:
You were wrong. They are just “in control” of Gaza despite performing zero government functions.
I think you just don’t understand the difference between Gaza and Palestine, but it’s hard to tell since you only copy/paste.
I’m bending over backwards here trying to help you understand something, but if You’re not putting any effort in, I’m not helping anymore.
Hamas absolutely controls Gaza with an iron fist. Everything from schools, to infrastructure, to daily life, to the electoral process.
You asked by whose law they are defined as terrorists. You got your answer: UK law, EU law, US law.
The BBC answers to UK law at the end of the day, not Gazan law, not US law, and not your law.
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I agree they shouldn’t parrot the views of the UK government blindly. But the BBC are not above the law. Stop that nonsense.
Hamas is a terrorist organization. They organize and commit acts of intentional violence against civilians with the express purpose of spreading terror.
Calling them anything else other than that is a disservice to the readers of the BBC and implicitly condones their actions by not labelling them as such.
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And the BBC will report the fact that Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by those bodies.