Shoulder to shoulder – with Hamas.

There is much discussion on Instapundit of a three-year old but still interesting story originally from the Jerusalem Post. A BBC correspondent, Faid Abu Shimalla, was described on the Hamas website as having said at a function attended by no less a dignitary than the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin that journalists and media organisations were “waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people.” (Via Free Will Blog.)

A quick search for “Shimalla” on the BBC website gave me no results.

UPDATE: New commenter Janus (followed by regular commenter PJF) has complained that the quotes originally round the headline to this post had no business being there. He’s absolutely right. They got there by means of an drafting change (from a quote to my opinion expressing surprise that the BBC rep was exchanging compliments with the leader of Hamas) that wasn’t followed through carefully enough. I have also now added a dash, to better get across the notion of surprise.

While I’m here, I gather that an alternative English spelling of the name Shimalla is Shamalla.