HonestReporting has highlighted how some mainstream media, including The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times, have published op-eds by Hamas leaders. We asked the question as to whether these newspapers could be guilty of providing material support for a terrorist organization.
We also stated that American newspapers would not give Osama bin Laden op-ed space. So why would they give the oxygen of publicity to a Hamas terrorist whose organization is responsible for the murder of US citizens in Israel and whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction and is filled with unadulterated anti-Semitism?
One counter-argument raised by those seeking to excuse this behavior is to attempt to separate Hamas’s “political wing” from its “military wing”, portraying Hamas as the “legitimate and democratically elected Palestinian government”.
Irrespective of this, Hamas in its entirety is a proscribed terrorist group under UK terror legislation as well as a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization according to the US State Department.
The Guardian’s online “Israel and the Palestinians” section, however, includes the “Hamas military wing” (circled) as one of a list of “Useful links”. There is no grey area here – this website links directly to an English language site of “Ezedeen Al-Qassam Brigades”, which describes itself as “the armed branch of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).”
While some Hamas leaders may dubiously claim to be mere politicians (directing and inciting terror from above), the members of the Brigades are actively involved in terrorist acts and some have the blood of innocent Israeli civilians on their hands.
We have not linked to this site (pictured below) as we do not wish to generate traffic to a terrorist organization. The site memorializes “martyrs” including many Hamas members directly involved in terror.
Putting legal issues to one side, how can The Guardian justify including a link to a terrorist website that has no equivalence amongst the other featured links?
Please send your respectful and considered comments to The Guardian’s readers’ editor Siobhain Butterworth – [email protected] – requesting that the paper remove this promotion of terror from its website.
