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The BBC Spreads Hamas Propaganda, Despite Telling the Truth in 2017
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Nearly eight years ago, in May 2017, the BBC News website published a report on the topic of a policy document published by Hamas. At the time, the BBC accurately reported that:
The new document, which Hamas says does not replace the charter, accepts the establishment of a Palestinian state within territories occupied by Israel in 1967 as a stage towards the “liberation” of all of historic Palestine west of the River Jordan.
This is an apparent shift in Hamas’s stated position, which previously rejected any territorial compromise.
The document says this does not, however, mean Hamas recognises Israel’s right to exist in any part of the land or that it no longer advocates violence against Israel. [emphasis added]
However, as CAMERA UK documented at the time, additional BBC reporting — including from the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell — promoted a false portrayal of the document as a “new charter,” and the inaccurate claim that “it really drops its long-standing call for an outright destruction of Israel.”
Months later, the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, was still promoting the inaccurate claim that Hamas had “made some changes” to its charter.
Notably, the BBC refused to correct that misinformation.
In January 2018, a Hamas leader clarified directly to the BBC that “we are not going to denounce a square meter of our land which is Palestine,” and in 2020, another Hamas leader told a different media outlet that “Palestine must stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”
Nevertheless, viewers watching BBC News channel coverage of the fifth phase of the release of Israeli hostages on the morning of February 8 heard the following from contributor Oliver McTernan of the British charity ‘Forward Thinking’. [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
BBC anchor: “You talk about Hamas’ political will for a solution but they do still have in their charter — don’t they — the destruction of the State of Israel. They did launch those attacks, murdering 1,200 people on October 7th.”
McTernan: “Well I think there are two things there. On the one hand, the 2017 document was to replace the charter and as I say, that was the acceptance of a two-state solution on ’67 borders. But the horror of what happened on October 7th – and, let’s face it, it was reprehensible – the level of violence, the nature of the violence, the taking of innocent families and so forth into Gaza, that, I think, it…you cannot justify it on any level whatsoever. But you have to try and understand it – that you get an inevitable explosion of violence if there is no political track which people can follow and horizon where they can see some sort of future.”
The BBC should have been able to anticipate that disinformation concerning the 2017 document and Hamas’ purported “acceptance of a two-state solution” — as well as “conflict resolution expert”’ McTernan’s “contextualisation”of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas and others on October 7, 2023. On the morning of that very day,
McTernan was in a BBC studio describing the then ongoing invasion of Israel and slaughter of civilians as an “expression of frustration” and telling audiences about his then recent trip to South Africa, where he met with Palestinian representatives.
In July 2024, the BBC television and radio program Hardtalk interviewed McTernan:
Sarah Montague speaks to former Catholic priest Oliver McTernan who has spent more than two decades working in conflict resolution in the Middle East. He is the director of the organisation Forward Thinking and was involved in negotiations that led to the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011. While he has no formal role in the current talks over the war in Gaza, he regularly speaks to senior figures in both Hamas and the Israeli government. Given the history of this protracted conflict, does he hold any hope that it will ever be resolved?
In addition to repeatedly promoting the false Hamas narrative of a siege on the Gaza Strip and providing a decidedly bizarre explanation for the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit in 2006, McTernan responded to Sarah Montague’s observation that one of the terrorists released in exchange for Shalit was Yahya Sinwar who “masterminded October 7” with the claim that “if there had been the lifting of the siege of Gaza, circumstances would have changed and you would not have got, I think, the level of violence that we witnessed on October 7. […] It was the lack of political progress that actually empowered the militant side of Hamas.”
Towards the end of that interview, throughout which he tried to promote the redundant notion of separate ‘wings’ to Hamas, McTernan made the following statement: “We forget that in 2017 Hamas issued a political statement […] where they recognised a two-state solution on ’67 borders.”
In other words — despite the existence of BBC procedures concerning risk assessment, including of “factual errors”, in live content — when the BBC News channel invited McTernan to participate in its coverage of the release of three Israeli hostages on February 8, 2025, it already knew that he is a promoter of the false notion of “’67 borders”; that he spreads disinformation concerning non-existent Hamas acceptance of a two-state solution; that he wrongly claims that the 2017 document “replaced” the Hamas charter; that he advances the redundant claim of separate “wings” to that terrorist organization; and that he makes excuses for the worst massacre in Israel’s history.
Where is the outrage?
Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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