On May 2nd and 3rd 2013 the BBC World Service programme ‘Hardtalk’ – hosted by Stephen Sackur – interviewed the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten.
The interview can be heard for a limited period of time here, or as a podcast here. A clip from the programme can be viewed here.
The interview is worth listening to in full, but particularly from around 16:06 in the audio version above when Sackur says:
“One other editorial issue that I want to put to you and it concerns James Harding – the new chief of news here at the BBC. He was the editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper and when he was at The Times, James Harding said this at a Jewish community centre debate in London in 2011. He said – quote – “I am pro-Israel and I haven’t found it hard because The Times has been pro-Israel for a very long time”. Now, James Harding is now the head of news at the BBC. Are you comfortable for him to pronounce himself pro-Israel as head of news of the BBC?”
Chris Patten replies:
“I’m sure he wouldn’t pronounce himself as pro-Israel or pro any country or part of an argument.”
SS: “But his problem is that he already has.”
CP: “Yeah, but look..”
SS: “I mean he won’t have changed the spots, I don’t suppose…”
CP: “You know perfectly well that I’ve expressed views on the Middle East in books and in articles and you know very well that I used to be in a past life – in a previous incarnation – chairman of the Conservative Party.”
SS: “Sure but..”
CP: “I’ve managed…”
SS: “You’re not head of BBC News and you never have been.”
CP: “No, but I’m chair of the BBC Trust.”
SS: “James Harding is self-declared pro-Israel. Do you have any problem with that? Do you think that it might create problems for you and for the BBC when one considers that perhaps the most contentious issue we all in BBC news and current affairs have to deal with on a daily basis is reporting the Middle East?”
Whether or not the BBC’s record for accurate and impartial reporting from the Middle East will improve under James Harding remains to be seen, but hopefully one practice he will be able to eradicate in the BBC news and current affairs department is that of cherry-picking quotes and then using them to promote a particular agenda.
Here is a report of Mr Harding’s April 2011 remarks: note Sackur’s apparent addition of the word ‘very’ to the part in his “quote” which says “..because The Times has been pro-Israel for a very long time”.
“Harding stressed the need for balanced journalism. “We say we’re pro-Israel but we’re also pro the Palestinian state… the question a journalist should always ask himself is are you making the case before opinion is dressed up as reportage?” “
James Harding does not specify what being “pro-Israel” means as far as he is concerned but frankly, these days it often means simply being convinced of Israel’s indisputable right to exist. One does have to wonder therefore what kind of interpretation Stephen Sackur attributes to that phrase.
The fact that Sackur appears to have no qualms about suggesting publicly that being pro-Israel is or should be “a problem” for a senior BBC employee, and that if James Harding had “changed his spots” that ‘problem’ would disappear, perhaps reveals more about the institutional culture at the BBC than Stephen Sackur and Chris Patten appear to realise.
“Two decades ago the world’s killing fields were in the Balkans and Rwanda but right now, they’re in Syria. Can we be any more confident today, than we were back then, that the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity will be brought to justice? HARDtalk speaks to Theodor Meron, currently serving a second term as President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. When it comes to delivering justice, is the international legal framework now in place fit for purpose? ”
The programme can be heard here or watched here in the UK.
Members of the audience tuning in because they are actually interested in the subject of potential legal action against either or both sides in the Syrian conflict would have been left feeling rather sold short after watching or listening to this programme, as the subject was given barely a minute of attention towards its end.
What they did hear, however, was host Stephen Sackur blithely lumping the subject of Israeli settlements together with crimes against humanity in, among other places, the former Yugoslavia, Darfur and Rwanda.
At 19:44 in the above audio recording, Sackur says to his interviewee Theodor Meron:
“Let’s talk about one particular case, which is again very relevant to your past, and that is Israel. Israel stands accused by many observers around the world of violating the Geneva Conventions – fundamental international law – when it comes to settlements. You wrote a legal advice for the Israeli prime minister back in 1967, right after the Six Day War, in which you said settling Jewish civilians on occupied land, in your view, would fundamentally contravene the Geneva Convention.”
Meron: “This is still my view.”
Sackur: “Still your view?”
Meron: “This is still my view.”
Sakur: “So in that case, do you think..”
Meron: “I am sorry my opinion was not listened to; I think those settlements certainly make no contribution to peace.”
Sackur: “Do you think Israel should face international legal action on the back of – for example – Chapter Eight of the ICC, concerning war crimes?”
Meron: “It would be a very difficult question for the ICC to tackle, but because of my Israeli past I feel not comfortable in discussing the jurisdictional or political aspect of..”
Sackur: “Well, precisely.”
Meron: “Because of my past.”
Sackur: “Well hang on a minute; that is your past. You’re no longer a citizen of Israel. You took US citizenship, but you advised the Israeli government for years and therefore you, more than anybody, could send a message ringing around the world about your belief of how Israel stands before international law.”
There are – as is well known – many legal opinions which differ with that of Theodor Meron, although Sackur elected to avoid any mention of that point and indeed a detailed and factual discussion of the subject would have actually distracted from what was clearly his purpose. The BBC is of course perfectly entitled to discuss the legal aspects of Israeli settlements, but its editorial guidelines would require that such a discussion be factual and balanced, with fair representation of differing views on the subject.
Sackur, however, was obviously not interested in such a discussion because – despite Meron’s clearly expressed reluctance to get into the issue – all that was important to him was getting across to audiences the ‘sound bite’ framing of the building of towns, villages and residential neighbourhoods as being a war crime on a par with the mass slaughter of civilians. That, together with Sackur’s call for a “message” to be sent “ringing around the world” can be seen as nothing other than a deliberately demagogic and politically motivated action which severely compromises the BBC’s claim of impartiality.
On March 1st 2013 the BBC’s flagship interview programme ‘Hardtalk’ featured Tim Franks – formerly a BBC correspondent in Jerusalem between 2007 and 2010 – talking to the Israeli novelist AB Yehoshua.
The programme can be heard as a podcast here or watched on BBC iPlayer in the UK here.
Audiences actually never get to hear about AB Yehoshua’s latest novel and its subject matter (according to the author) of the relationship between West and East in Israel, because the interviewer repeatedly drags the conversation back to one issue – the peace process. Already in the introduction viewers get a hint of the interview’s tone as a whole when Franks refers to the failure of that process and “the journey Israeli Jews need now to take” – apparently without any such journey being necessary on the other side of the divide and ignoring the non-Jewish 20% of the Israeli population.
Regardless of one’s degree of agreement or disagreement with AB Yehoshua’s politics and opinions, this interview is particularly interesting because it provides a glimpse of what happens when cherished BBC accepted wisdoms regarding the Middle East meet the Israeli Left and the extent of the BBC’s lack of ability to understand that the Left in Israel does not necessarily fit into preconceived compartments which apply to other countries.
At 07:03 in the video above, Franks declares:
“But the truth is it is the Right that is in power and it is gaining in power – not just politically – when you think about the institutions in Israel; the army, the judiciary. Why is the Left failing in Israel?”
Franks provides no evidence for his assertion, and seems rather nonplussed when Yehoshua replies by pointing out to him that even most of the Right in Israel recognizes the need for a two state solution. To that, Franks responds:
“Yes, but what progress is there being made towards the two state solution?”
At 09:54 Franks promotes an old canard which still crops up fairly regularly in BBC articles:
“One of the ..erm..views that you have though, that seems to be directly in the mainstream [of Israeli thought] and also – to be honest – a bit of a myth, is that when Israel withdrew its settlers back in 2005, it left Gaza a sort of pristine proto-Singapore: a sort of place that could become a territory of boundless possibilities..err…for the Palestinians who were left behind, when actually it was still a miserable and occupied place.”
ABY: “It was not an occupied place.”
TF: (interrupts) “It was!”
ABY: “It wasn’t occupied.”
TF: “The Israelis..the Israelis retained control.”
ABY: “No, we don’t retain control. They have an open border to Egypt. They have an open border to Egypt.”
TF: (interrupts) “That..that..that border was sealed by Egypt and it was ..and on all other sides Israel retained control, so there was no freedom of movement.”
ABY: “Because these are enemies. They are throwing Kassams.”
Gaza Strip withdrawal 2005
TF: “Well no, you can argue the reason for it but I’m just saying it’s just a bit of a myth to say that it was no longer occupied.”
ABY: “This is an enemy and when there are..after the withdrawal…we have withdraw (sic) from Gaza without any conditions.”
TF: (interrupts) “Well I’m sorry but that’s simply not true. Take the UN report from just a few months ago: ‘the blockade imposed by Israel intensified’ – this was following the Hamas takeover – ‘intensified the closure applied since the early 1990s. It is a denial of basic human rights in contravention of international law and amounts to collective punishment’. That’s the UN saying you have not withdrawn.”
ABY: “Yes, now I have to say. In Gaza there was first of all settlement. There were eight thousand Jews living there in the heart of Gaza. This was a very, very – I would say – bad thing that we have done. One of the most vicious things that we have done to put there.. to take part of Gaza and put there settlements for eight thousand vis-a-vis one million and a half refugees. The people in Gaza fought against us and Israel was defeated. This is the main thing. After the withdrawal from Gaza, the people in Gaza…we were saying to Gaza; now you are by your own [selves]. You are governing yourself. You make yourself a Singapore. Take money from all the Arab countries and invest and build etcetera. Instead they continue to throw Kassam and missiles on Israel and putting one million people on [in] shelters. This is the situation and of course, what we have to do? We have to say to them now take more sophisticated missiles from Iran in order to hit Tel Aviv? They already hit Tel Aviv. They are shelling our cities and people are..million people are…and they don’t have any reason to do it. They are free. No [not] one Israeli soldier is in Gaza. So – [Franks tries to interrupt] now give me the possibility – when they are in state of war against us – a total state of war – we don’t have any responsibility. They are enemy. And now for the first time we see very clearly that they can control the fire and for three month they are not shooting any more because they can control and when they have shooted (sic) it was done by their own will and not because someone was obliging them.”
Franks clearly cannot understand AB Yehoshua’s reply. Like many others in the West today, he is incapable of reconciling a Left wing political view with the concept of the right to – and necessity for – self-defence and equally incapable of releasing himself from the trap of viewing Palestinians solely in terms of victimhood and oppression. So Franks changes the subject:
“Given the continuation of the conflict..erm…given what is happening inside Israel itself, how long do you think Israel has got?”
ABY: “For what?”
TF: “To continue its existence – as a Jewish state.”
Following the first part of AB Yehoshua’s answer to that question, Franks asks again:
“If though – sorry to interrupt – if that doesn’t happen; if there isn’t a two state solution, how long do you think Israel has?”
In general, there are two categories of people who talk about a world without the Jewish state. We are sadly now used to anti-Israel extremists of the red-green alliance openly championing the notion of the forced dismantling of Israel and – at least in the case of this writer – deeply perplexed by the casual approach of so-called enlightened societies in the West to the open expression of the concept of the planned destruction of a sovereign country.
The other sort of person who talks about a world without the Jewish state is the one who belongs to the school of thought which purports to want to ‘save Israel from itself’. Often insisting that they are ‘friends of Israel’, they promote the notion that without a two state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel’s days are numbered. Significantly, they place the onus of arriving at that solution upon the shoulders of the Israeli side of that conflict alone, whilst totally ignoring Palestinian rejectionism, Palestinian terror and Palestinian incitement, and in doing so they display a clear case of double standards, mixed with no small amount of self-awarded moral superiority and patronising paternalism.
Significantly too, they would never have dreamed 15 years ago of asking a British author how long his country had got if it did not reach a peace agreement with the IRA. Neither would they ask a Lebanese interviewee how long they think their country will survive if it does not grant equal rights to the Palestinian refugees and their descendants living there. They would also never ask a person living in Gaza or Ramallah how long his nation will continue to exist if it does not make peace with Israel.
One can, of course, be of the opinion that a two state solution is the desirable way in which to end the conflict, as indeed the vast majority of Israelis are. But to suggest that if that cannot be achieved in the near future – as it has not been over the last two decades – then Israel soon will cease to exist as a Jewish state, is obviously mere speculation and involves no small degree of scaremongering and emotional blackmail as well as a disturbing paucity of informed critical thinking about the Middle East.
Tim Franks clearly does not belong to the first category of people who openly talk about a world without Israel. Whether there is a moral difference between the two, given the implications of a panicked implementation of a two state solution in the current climate, whilst ignoring the ever-looming possibility of the fall of the Palestinian Authority and a Hamas take-over of the territory currently under PA control, is a matter of opinion.
It is nevertheless disturbing to hear the very concept of a world without Israel being brought into the mainstream by a representative of a media organization which is part of the British establishment because – although that may not be the intention – it nevertheless contributes to the delegitimisation of Israel.
One can, perhaps, gain some insight into the expression of that concept by Franks by listening to the rest of the interview and in particular by tuning in to the subtext of the conversation, in which a BBC journalist (who also happens to be a diaspora Jew) meets an Israeli. It is very clear that Franks – like the organization he represents – has difficulty understanding the issue of Israeli identity and in coming to terms with the fact that Israelis are not just Jews who happen to live in a more pleasant climate, but that their collective experiences, together with the eclectic make-up of Israeli society, have forged a new national identity.
Unwittingly, Tim Franks may have provided us with an understanding that part of the BBC’s problem with Israel is that deep down – perhaps unconsciously - it sees Israelis as Jews who could just as easily live anywhere else in the world rather than as a nation in its own right.
One other observation we can take from this interview is that no matter how many correspondents the BBC sends to Jerusalem at considerable expense and no matter how many reams of articles it produces on Israel, BBC journalists do not seem to be particularly interested in understanding the people who make up the nation about which they report.
On February 7th and 8th 2013, BBC Two and BBC News broadcast an edition of the flagship interview show ‘Hardtalk‘ from Doha with Khaled Masha’al as its guest.
Part one:
Part two:
It is worth watching the whole interview – if only to see Khaled Masha’al try to disavail Stephen Sackur of a few obviously dearly-held illusions concerning Hamas.
At 2:13 Sackur says:
“[…] but what I am interested in is the nature of the language you used when you went to Gaza afterwards [after Operation Pillar of Cloud]. For example, you said ‘Palestine is ours from the river (the Jordan River, that is) to the sea. There will be no concessions of any inch of land’ you said. It was the most hard-line speech and yet it doesn’t actually fit with the rhetoric that you and other Hamas leaders have used at different times in the last year, so what is going on?”
Interrupting Masha’al’s reply at 3:27, Sackur goes on to say:
“Yeah, but hang on. If you’re saying that it [Masha'al's Gaza speech] was just natural emotion, are you telling me that it was nothing more than symbolism – it’s not something that should be taken seriously in terms of the politics of any future negotiation?”
Masha’al continues to try to explain, but at 04:31 Sackur interjects:
“But I just want to nail down what your current position is on the question of a two state solution to provide a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The Saudi newspaper Al Sharq reported just the other day that you are now prepared to accept a two state solution. You have told this, according to the newspaper, to King Abdullah and you’ve asked King Abdullah to…of Jordan…to relay this message to President Obama. Is that true?”
Masha’al replies unequivocally:
“This is not true.”
In fact, various Hamas officials had denied the report by Al Sharq a whole week before the ‘Hardtalk’ programme was broadcast and four days before it was recorded.
Sackur goes on to suggest to Masha’al that Hamas cannot achieve reconciliation with Fatah or join the PLO if it refuses to accept a two state solution. Apparently he is not sufficiently able to read between the lines of Masha’al’s reply – or to relinquish romantic notions about Fatah – in order to appreciate that in fact, among the obstacles to Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, that issue is far from being the greatest stumbling block.
The question which naturally arises from this interview is whether there will now be any sort of reappraisal by the BBC as regards the topics it frequently presents as ‘obstacles to peace‘.
But perhaps the most telling part of the interview, as far as the BBC is concerned, comes at the beginning when Masha’al gives his view of the recent conflict.
“It was Israel that started the aggression when they assassinated the martyred leader Ahmed al Jabari at a time when Egypt was seeking a truce”
“Netanyahu did not think about the war. He just wanted to have a tactical victory over Hamas and the resistant [sic] in Gaza in order to exploit such victory in these elections.”
Those two claims are of course identical to the BBC’s line of reporting throughout and after Operation Pillar of Cloud in which it repeatedly promoted both the ‘Israel started it’ and the ‘it’s all in aid of the Israeli elections’ themes.
Is the BBC really comfortable with the fact that the proverbial cigarette paper cannot be inserted between its own reporting and the propaganda of a racist terrorist organisation?
Ahead of its February 7th broadcast of an edition of ’Hardtalk‘ with Khaled Masha’al, the BBC was promoting the programme on the Home and Middle East pages of its BBC News website with a written article and a filmed report.
The synopsis of the ‘Hardtalk’ programme states:
“HARDtalk travels to Doha to meet Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas. His base used to be Damascus but he broke ranks with the Assad regime after the repression of the Syrian uprising. Now he spends much of his time in the diplomatically ambitious Gulf state of Qatar – another sign that the realities of the Middle East are changing. But not, it seems, in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. On that front does Hamas have anything new to offer?”
As we are only too aware, during Masha’al’s visit to Gaza last year the BBC largely ignored the content of his speeches there, extensively promoting a sanitized version of the Hamas ‘birthday’ extravaganza.
(A longer video of Masha’al’s speech can be seen here.)
In both of the February 7th reports promoting the ‘Hardtalk’ programme, and as has often been the case in the past, the BBC seems very keen to put the accent upon the subject of Hamas-Fatah unity, but without providing any insight for its audiences as to what the wider consequences of such unity – or Masha’al’s reported bid to head the PLO – might be.
In the written article, Hamas is referred to as “the militant group”, with the final two paragraphs stating:
“Hamas is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US and EU due to its long record of attacks and its refusal to renounce violence.
But its supporters say it is a legitimate resistance movement and a democratically elected government.”
This rather laconic statement is taken from the BBC’s own profile of Hamas, but with one important omission. The original states – with the link included – that:
“Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and EU, due to its long record of attacks and its refusal to renounce violence. Under the group’s charter, Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel.
But to its supporters it is seen as a legitimate resistance movement and a democratically elected government.”
As well as those mentioned, there are in fact other countries which define Hamas as a terror organization as well as additionalcountries which designate Hamas’ Izz ad Din al Qassam arm. Obviously too, the criteria for designation of terror organisations are considerably less simplistic than the BBC suggests.
But what is really odd about the above statement is the promotion of the views of supporters of a terrorist organization which murders civilians on the basis of their ethnicity – apparently in order to lend an air of ‘balance’ and ‘impartiality’ to a BBC article. That must be one of the more absurd examples of moral relativism around.
It is not clear when the January 17th edition of the BBC programme ‘Hardtalk‘ was recorded, but certainly by the time of its broadcast Stephen Sackur’s guest Dani Dayan had already tendered his resignation from the post of chair of the Yesha Council (or ‘Israeli settler movement’, as both thesynopsis and the interviewer call it), having announcedthat move on January 8th 2013. Getting the facts right about an interviewee’s official positions should, one might have thought, be pretty basic stuff for an organisation committed to accuracy.
The programme is available here for viewers in the UK or here.
The programme’s introduction promotes the currently popular BBC theme of a ‘far-Right government’ being about to be elected in Israel.
“Arguably the most Right-wing government in Israel’s history may soon be replaced by a government even further to the right. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the clear favourite to keep his job after next week’s election, but his next governing coalition may depend on hardliners in the Jewish settler movement who want to annex large chunks of the West Bank and end all talk of a two-state peace deal.”
Some Israelis might feel that there is little point in their going to the ballot box at all on Tuesday if things are as clear-cut as the BBC makes out. But actually, some of the final public opinion polls (carried out before Israeli electoral law forbids any further publication of polls) seem to indicate that they are not, with the Likud-Beiteinu list down to an estimated 32 seats and Yair Lapid’s centre-Left party passing the Jewish Home. Without taking into account the Arab or Orthodox parties, the Left and Right blocs appear to be pretty much balanced.
That, of course, will probably do nothing to deter the BBC from yet more ‘doom and gloom’ crystal ball-gazing, but at least it could try to get its facts right. Contrary to what Sackur says at 02:34, the Jewish Home party is not “new” – it has been in existence under its current name since 2008, although it is actually a conglomeration of even older parties. It has three seats in the outgoing Knesset and one minister in the outgoing government.
This interview undoubtedly gives many fascinating glimpses into the views of the host (not least his determination to advance the ‘apartheid’ canard), but one of its really interesting parts comes at 15:59 when Sackur – having just dismissed the possibility of spending “the next half hour talking history” – defines what he calls “the nub of this issue”:
“The Palestinians living in the West Bank today are dispossessed of basic rights. They do not get a right to vote for the power that has ultimate sovereignty over them and that is the fact. You cannot get away from it.”
At 19:14 Sackur repeats his argument:
“Is not one of the basic human rights to be able to vote and determine the political power that actually controls your life? Palestinians do not have that right.”
One could almost believe that Stephen Sackur (and his fact-checker, if he has such a thing) has been in some sort of Rip Van Winkle slumber for the past 20 years and hence has perhaps never heard of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian President who recently began the eighth year of his four-year term of office or the 2006 election in which Palestinian voters elected a Hamas majority.
I suppose that is what happens when one doesn’t have time to talk about history.
This episode of the BBC programme ‘Hardtalk‘ in which Zeinab Badawi interviews Coptic Christian Naguib Sawiris – founder of the Free Egyptians Party – is not connected to Israel, but it is both interesting in itself as well as useful in that it provides a glimpse into BBC perceptions of the “Arab Spring” some six months after the publication of the BBC Trust commissioned report on the subject.
(Sound is lost at around 04:00 but resumes at 05:39)
The Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the European Union – Leila Shahid – appeared on ‘Hardtalk’ (broadcast on the BBC World Service) on December 14th 2012.
Readers in Britain can see the programme here for a limited period of time and those elsewhere can listen to a podcast of it here.
Though presenter Stephen Sackur did a fairly reasonable job on the whole, once again we saw in this programme an interviewee allowed to make factually incorrect statements without appropriate correction from the BBC’s representative.
Shahid’s statement that Israel “killed 1,400 civilians” during Operation Cast Lead went uncorrected, as did her use of the phrase “67 borders”. Most seriously, her claim that Palestinians were “ethnically cleansed” in 1948 raised a barely audible and certainly incomprehensible grumble from Sackur, but was not properly refuted.
In addition to the broadcast of the progamme itself, the BBC News website decided to highlight one portion of the interview on its Middle East page under the title “Palestinians ‘need a normal life’ “.
That 2:03 minute section of the interview can be seen here and it is largely devoted to something of a rant from Shahid in which – continuing her theme earlier in the programme when challenged regarding PA human rights abuses – she manages to blame each and every defect of the authority she represents upon “the occupation”.
“You make the questions and the answers. So if you want an answer, I’m telling you, the official institutions of the EU who are in charge of corruption with all the partners of the EU has not been able to show a case of corruption in terms of stealing money. The corruption is in the system of political clientelism. What we need is to go back to a normal life. A normal life means freedom, sovereignty, elections, democratic institutions, a parliament and a president. All this means an end of occupation. There is no way you’re going to convince me that you can build democracies without freedom. Citizens can’t express themselves – will not be able really to protect their own rights and their accomplishments unless they are free to do so. We have not had a working parliament for the last five years and this is not normal. For all these reasons I think we have a lot of work to do and in order to do it, we are sure that we need reconciliation, an end of occupation, freedom and statehood.”
The editorial decision to isolate, highlight and amplify this particular section of the interview is a very interesting one.
The BBC programme ‘Hardtalk’ describes itself on its own website thus:
“HARDtalk is the hard-hitting flagship news programme shown on BBC World News and the BBC News channel.
The half hour interview is the result of detailed research and in-depth investigations.
HARDtalk asks the difficult questions and gets behind the stories that make the news – from international political leaders to entertainers; from corporate decision-makers to ordinary individuals facing huge challenges.”
Here is a ‘Hardtalk’ interview with Ghazi Hamad of Hamas from July 2012:
Notably, presenter Zeinab Badawi allows Hamad to speak about the blockade without bringing up the subject of rocket fire at Israeli civilian communities.
When forced by the constraints of ‘impartiality’ to represent the Israeli point of view as Hamad recites his list of Israeli ‘crimes’, Badawi displays palpable ennui which, when interrupted by Hamad fizzles out into an apologetic “I was just trying to give you what they…”.
Badawi asks Hamad about arms smuggling through Rafah, but when he changes the subject to that of the smuggling of food, medicines and building materials, she fails to follow through.
Her final attempt at ‘impartiality’ is a lame “they [Israel] deny that of course” after Hamad states “We are sure that Israel poisoned President Arafat”.
This is not the first time that Ghazi Hamad has appeared on ‘Hardtalk’. Here he is in May 2011 going completely unchallenged by presenter Stephen Sackur when he says that Hamas is ready to “liberate our homeland” and claims that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, not radical and not extremist.
