BBC News misleading on status of Hamas

In Israel to pay frozen tax revenues, one can read the following.

Israel suspended the funds because it regards Hamas as a terrorist group committed to the destruction of Israel.

The above statement is somewhat misleading, in that it makes it sound as though only Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group committed to the country’s destruction. In fact, it is also listed as a terrorist group by the European Union, Canada, the United States and Australia. Former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi said that the movement “will remove Israel from the map”, a motivation corroborated by the Hamas charter, from which the following excerpts are taken.

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

…

The Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

…

The Arab states surrounding Israel are required to open their borders to the Jihad fighters, the sons of the Arab and Islamic peoples, to enable them to play their role and to join their efforts to those of their brothers among the Muslim Brothers in Palestine.

BBC News’s statement would have been more accurate if formulated as follows.

Israel suspended the funds because Hamas, regarded as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States as well as by itself, is committed to the destruction of Israel.

Jim Muir perhaps sets the editorial guidelines.