BBC Propaganda

Earlier today I started a post about the BBC's positive attitude to Hamas in the wake of the Alan Johnston release. Other things got in the way and I'm glad it worked out like that because the article I was working on pales in comparison to this pro-Hamas propaganda currently on the BBC website.

Hamas hopes it has delivered several messages - the first is to any potential rivals in Gaza about who is boss.

But not the only one as the Beeb are quick to point out-

The second, and most important of all for Palestinians, is that it is dedicated to ending the appalling lawlessness of the last few years.

No mention of preventing their own lawless attacks on Israeli civilians or of their recent actions in Gaza which left people dead.

The third message, aimed at the outside world, is that the release of Alan Johnston shows that Hamas is responsible, and powerful.

Yep, terrorists dedicated to the wholesale slaughter of innocent Israeli men, women and children are "responsible" according to the swooning BBC. Following a breathless account of how hard Hamas worked to release Johnston we get this-

When I visited Khaled Meshal, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, in Damascus last week, he told me that their strategy was to build pressure on the kidnappers until they cracked.

To make reality a little more palatable, a deal was done about an exchange of prisoners, and a fatwa was issued by a cleric authorising Alan's release.

Friendly chats with terrorist leaders- all in a day's work for the Beeb. Meshal, by the way, is thought to direct Hamas' terror attacks.

Hamas wants to impose law and order but there are plenty of issues they need to sort out before that can happen.

Recognising Israel's right to exist? Stopping blowing up children? No, the Beeb's only worried about rivalries within Gaza.

But if Hamas can bring law and order to Gaza, then it will increase its legitimacy.

Ah, that old gem that's always trotted out when an Islamist totalitarian regime comes to power- remember the "golden age" that the press promised was coming to war torn Somalia when they took over there? Amazing that the average liberal journalist gets all dreamy at the mention of dictatorial regimes imposing "law and order" by any means necessary.

Hamas says it wants a rapprochement with Fatah, the other big Palestinian faction.

But so far, Fatah - still stinging from the defeat inflicted by Hamas three weeks ago - says it has no interest in dealing with a group that perpetrated what it calls a "military coup".

Poor old Hamas- they just was to live in peace and harmony with the other terrorist gangs but bad old Fatah won't play. It's just not fair!

And there is Israel, which controls Gaza's borders, its airspace and its sea coast.

At least six Hamas members were killed in an Israeli raid into Gaza the night after Alan Johnston was released.

Most Israelis regard Hamas as a terror organisation that would destroy their state if it could.

Most Israelis? How about every rational human being around the world- it isn't just in the imagination of Israelis (notice how the Beeb helpfully tells us that six of the peace-loving Hamas men were killed) that Hamas wants to destroy Israel- it's what Hamas themselves believe and what they themselves have told the world time and again. And if Hamas isn't a terror organisation then what do the Beeb call a group that commit indiscriminate mass-murder of innocent people?

Israel may not like it, but there are signs that some people in influential positions in the West are changing their view of Hamas after everything it did to release Alan Johnston.

For the new British foreign secretary, David Miliband, it amounted to a change of tone. He welcomed the part played by Hamas, and mentioned its prime minister, Ismail Haniya, by name.

I should point out here that Britain negotiated with recognised terror group Hamas to obtain Johnston's release. So much for that "no talking with terrorists" thing, eh?

Others go much further, believing that the policy of isolating Hamas because it will not recognise Israel or renounce violence, is looking threadbare, not least because it seems to play into the hands of the extremists.

A group of British parliamentarians has signed a motion in the House of Commons calling for engagement with Hamas.

Let me see if I understand this- refusing to recognise Hamas because they're a bunch of genocidal mass-murderers plays into the hands of extremists? The Hamas extremists that think it's okay to eradicate an entire nation? Or the Hamas extremists that like to detonate bombs amidst crowds of women and children? I'm not sure I follow his reasoning. Is this BBC journalist really arguing that it's high time we forgot about asking Hamas to stop wanting to destroy an entire nation because that policy is "threadbare"?

The mood was summed up in the final despatch sent back to the UN by its Middle East envoy, Alvaro De Soto, before he retired earlier this summer.

He wrote that Hamas "can potentially evolve in a pragmatic direction that would allow for a two-state solution - but only if handled right".

I actually thought we'd done away with the pragmatic argument- weren't Hamas supposed to become moderate when they won the election, came to power and actually had to function in Gaza as government? That didn't quite work out as expected, did it? And yet here we are again- journalists and politicians expecting the leopard to change its spots, despite all the evidence to the contrary.