Samuel Morrison: It’s shameful of the BBC not to call the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 what it was – terrorism

Yet, shamefully, our national broadcaster, the BBC, not only refuses to refer to this as terrorism but carries an article by one of its senior journalists, John Simpson, explaining why it will not use the term.

Language matters when it comes to dealing with such matters. This was something recognised by a former BBC employee, George Orwell, who in his dystopian novel 1984 describes how a new language is introduced “designed to diminish the range of thought".

Tellingly the former BBC man calls this new language “Newspeak”. It is characterised by the elimination or alteration of certain words; the substitution of one word for another; and the creation of words for political purposes.

Orwell would have recognised the practice of removing the word terrorist and replacing it with gunman. Or describing someone who burns families in their cars as they seek to flee murderers as a militant.

While the BBC disregards the fact that Hamas is defined in law as a terrorist group it is quite happy to use laws passed by the same UK government to insist that all television owners pay for the BBC, whether or not they want to or even watch their productions.

This is not the first time the BBC has faced issues such as this relating to its attempts to frame the debate when it comes to the Middle East.

In October 2005 the BBC governors commissioned a report into its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The panel, which included Lord Eames, believed that there was “significant scope for improvement, particularly when reporting terrorism”.

The report stated: “The term ‘terrorism’ should be used in respect of relevant events since it is the most accurate expression for actions which involve violence against randomly selected civilians with the intention of causing terror for ideological, including political or religious, objectives, whether perpetrated by state or non-state agencies.”

While the BBC commissioned the report and the public money which it derived from the licence fee was used to pay for it, its conclusions and recommendations are absent from John Simpson’s patronising essay on the BBC website entitled “Why BBC doesn’t call Hamas militants ‘terrorists’” (the quotation marks around the word terrorists are Mr Simpson’s).

Mr Simpson claims that the word choice is down to the fact that “We [the BBC] don't take sides”.

Of course that’s nonsense. On a whole range of issues the BBC is more than happy to take sides.

When the World Cup was in Qatar they were happy to provide Gary Lineker with a platform to criticise the human rights record of the Qatari government.

When it comes to gender ideology the BBC happily insists that a biological man should be able to use female pronouns and a female name.

When it fits the left wing agenda of the broadcaster, language becomes something it is content to deploy to push a political point.

Furthermore, even when it comes to the use of words like terror the BBC are inconsistent. In the immediate aftermath of a shooting in Brussels on Monday night the BBC website ran the headline: “Suspect at large after two Swedes killed in terror attack.”

Is it only Israeli Jews who cannot be subjected to terrorism?

l Samuel Morrison is press officer for TUV