On August 2nd the BBC News website published a report by Thomas Mackintosh headlined “Hamas refuses to disarm until Palestinian state established”.
Readers of the current version of that report are told that:
“Hamas has reaffirmed that it will not agree to disarm unless a sovereign Palestinian state is established, in response to one of Israel’s key demands in talks about a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Palestinian armed group said it was responding to remarks it attributed to US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff that Hamas had “expressed its willingness” to lay down its weapons.
Israel considers the disarmament of Hamas one of several key conditions for any deal to end the conflict.”
And:
“Hamas – a proscribed terror group in the US, UK and EU – said in its statement that it could not yield its right to “resistance and its weapons” unless an “independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital” was established.”
However, Mackintosh refrained from informing his readers that Hamas in fact rejects the concept of a ‘two-state solution’ and he did not bother to remind them that the terrorist organisation had made a similar statement in April 2024.
“Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya, who in October said that the goal of the October 7 massacres in southern Israel was to plunge the entire region into permanent war, claims that Hamas would disband its military wing if a Palestinian state were to be established along pre-1967 borders.
In an interview with AP, the Qatar-based Hamas politburo official says that the terrorist organization would be willing to lay down its weapons and dissolve the al-Qassam Brigades “should a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip” be implemented along Israel’s pre-1967 borders, with “the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions.” […]
The Palestinian demand for a so-called “right of return” provides for up to six million descendants of refugees entering Israel — a demand dismissed by Israel as seeking to destroy it as a Jewish majority state.”
However, as was reported by the Times of Israel at the time, al-Hayya also gave another interview to a different media outlet:
“In an interview yesterday with the Dubai-based Asharq News, al-Hayya said that the creation of a Palestinian state along 1967 borders would be viewed only as a temporary solution, and insisted on the Palestinians’ “historic right to all Palestinian lands,” suggesting that the terror group would continue to try and reach its stated goal of destroying Israel.
Hamas’s 1988 founding charter, a virulently antisemitic document rife with outlandish tropes about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, professes the terror group’s commitment to armed struggle, while rejecting any territorial concessions to “the warmongering Jews.”
In a 2017 bid to curry international favor, Hamas revised the document, claiming the group’s struggle was not against Jews, but rather against “the Zionist project.” But Hamas’s political program still officially “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel. The 2017 charter asserts the Palestinian right to the “Arab Islamic land” of Palestine, “which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south.””
That context would surely have helped BBC audiences better understand Hamas’ latest statement concerning disarmament, but Mackintosh failed to provide it. His report also tells readers that:
“In the past few days, Arab governments have urged Hamas to disarm and surrender control of Gaza, after a number of Western countries – including France and Canada – announced plans to recognise a state of Palestine. The UK said it would if Israel did not meet certain conditions by September.”
Mackintosh refrained from telling BBC audiences that those “Arab governments” include the 22 members of the Arab League.
“Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, signed a declaration Tuesday [July 29th – Ed.] condemning for the first time Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, and calling on the Palestinian terror group to release all the hostages it is holding, disarm and end its rule of Gaza, in a bid to end the devastating war in the Strip. […]
“In the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State,” said the declaration.”
While some may say that July 29th declaration has its problems and others oppose it outright, it is interesting to note that – unlike the statements put out by France, Canada and particularly the UK – it has not received any stand-alone coverage on the BBC News website.
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