BBC Middle East Editor openly endorses Hamas’ position
In categorically stating, “they [Hamas] were all speaking the truth”, the BBC Middle East Editor clearly expresses his own opinion. This is compounded by the fact that he goes on endorse the veracity of the words of the Hamas leader by saying, “and I believe him”.
AREA OF CONCERN: Impartiality
“our journalists and presenters, including those in news and current affairs, may provide professional judgments but may not express personal opinions on matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters.”
Transcript of BBC Radio 4 Today Programme broadcast
Today, James Naughtie and Jeremy Bowen, 4 July 2007
James Naughtie: And in the studio with us is a very happy Jeremy Bowen - our Middle East editor. Jeremy, what do you make of the circumstances and what lies ahead?
Jeremy Bowen: Well first of all, when Hamas says that they worked very hard to try and make this happen and Alan said it too, they were all speaking the truth. Hamas have right from the beginning been against this. I’ve visited a couple of times the leader of Hamas in exile, Khaled Meshal in Damascus, to talk about this particular case and he said very early on to me, he said look, this is an attack on Alan Johnston, it’s an attack on the BBC but it’s also an attack on us in Hamas. He said to me, when I heard that this kidnap had happened the first thing I did was get on the phone to Gaza to make sure it wasn’t us. Then once I realized it wasn’t us, from that moment we started working (proceeds to say “and I believe him” but is interrupted by James Naughtie).
JN: And hugely important for them, I mean quite apart from anything else, at a moment when they’re trying to demonstrate that they’re in charge and to say that the security elements, as Mr. Yousef was saying a moment ago, previously were corrupt as they would put it and so on. I mean from their point of view it was extremely important to make this happen.
JB: Absolutely. On all kinds of levels – there is a moral level for them as well as a political level too. But right from the beginning, just in the small hours, when Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister sacked by the Fatah president, of course, was talking about this. He said then that this was because, you know, he was trying to get a bit of a bounce out of this politically and of course they will try to do that. Internationally, I don’t think they’ll get all that far because there are all these conditions that they have to fulfil.
But if they can succeed in doing what they say they want to do – which is to make Gaza secure, make it possible for foreigners and others to move around and for Palestinians to live there in peace – then by hook or by crook they will be getting a bounce out of this because to start with people will be able to report what’s happening in Gaza.
There are many hurdles though before that thing can happen. Not least, Hamas have also got to try and stop people firing out of Gaza at Israel because if they don’t they’re going to get another Israeli military incursion, that’s certain.
JN: Jeremy Bowen thanks very much.