The Right Approach

The latest BBC headlines – Britain ‘should approach Hamas.’

Is that a fair representation of the conclusions the Foreign Affairs Committee has come to? Or is it that the BBC has selected the juiciest bit to emphasise?

I can do that too.
If you can download huge PDFs, have a look at the report.

section 2.8

“Hamas is not a member of the PLO, and does not—under the terms of its Charter—accept the existence of Israel on any of its current territory; it is an armed movement engaged in attacks on Israel and proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, EU and US.

and in a later section, re Gaza:

For his part, Mr Blair told us that for Israel the position was “very simple […]. If it is subject to rocket attacks on its civilians over a prolonged period of time, it will respond at some point.”23 He stressed the role that Israel’s status as a democracy played in its decision to take action: “in circumstances where you have rocket attacks on innocent Israeli civilians, believe me, there is no democratic Government […] that will not act.”24

So, we should approach Hamas?

Do we blame the message or the messenger? Probably a bit of both. But since this is about the BBC I would like your views, preferably after studying the report more thoroughly than I have.