Who's ideological?

BBC Radio 5Live just after the 11:30 news had an interview by Victoria 'nngh' Derbyshire with the BBC's Middle East Editor/expert Jeremy Bowen. It was a fascinating interview, especially for the way that Jeremy Bowen managed to call Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government "right-wing" and "ideological" but not point out that Hamas is a fanatical terrorist organisation whose very charter calls for the destruction of Israel and whose clerics and politicians regularly call for the killing of all Jews - see these links for more background.

Jeremy Bowen explained that Israel had given Fatah the choice to either stay separate from Hamas and have peace with Israel or ally with Hamas and lose Israel's cooperation. Might not the fact that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel have been used to illustrate why Israel is not to keen on dealing with Hamas be considered a relevant fact to present to the listeners? Might the listeners not also be interested in knowing that Hamas is one of the few organisations to have decried the killing of Osama Bin Laden ? Why are the BBC so keen to protect Hamas from criticism and so willing to portray Israel as the aggressor or roadblock at every turn?

Of course Fatah are not really much more friendly to Israel than Hamas. Here's Fatah:

"Fatah is not responding [to the Goldstone Report], is not apologizing, is not sorry, and does not recognize Israel. It is the PLO that negotiates on behalf of the Palestinian people." Ahmad Assaf, Fatah spokesman: 8 Feb 2010

Yasser Arafat after signing the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."

And here's Hamas:

"The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth." Ziyad Abu al-Haj, Hamas cleric in Friday sermon 3 April 2009

"Regarding the Jews, our business with them is only through bombs and guns... the prophet [Muhammad] promised that we will fight you, with Allah's help, until the tree and stone say: "Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Nizar Rayan, Hamas religious and military leader, 1 Jan 2009

"We find occasional condemnation and denunciation of the resistance operations and bombings [suicide attacks], carried out by Hamas and the Palestinian resistance branches... [Eventually] everyone will know that we did this [suicide attacks] only because our Lord commanded so - 'I did it not of my own accord' [Quran] - and so that people will know that the extermination of Jews is good for the inhabitants of the world." Source: Al-Rissala (Hamas weekly), 23 Apr 2007

"The Jews are the Jews. There never was among them a supporter of peace. They are all liars… They are terrorists. Therefore it is necessary to slaughter them and murder them, according to the words of Allah… It is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land. Make war on them any place that you find yourself. Any place that you meet them – kill them. Kill the Jews and those among the Americans who are like them… The Jews only understand might. Have no mercy on the Jews, murder them everywhere." Dr. Ahmed Yousuf Abu Halabiah, a member of the Palestinian Sharia (Islamic religious law) Rulings Council, and Rector of Advanced Studies at the Islamic University: 13 October 2000

If you were an Israeli would you trust either party to honestly talk peace? I wonder how Jeremy Bowen would answer that question?