Switzerland, Beware

Hamas has set down the following requirements for recruits for its new navy:

The requirements to join are that you have to be a good soldier, be fit, and know how to swim.

The last is particularly important, as the Hamas "navy" hasn't so much as a secondhand pedalo to its name.

Sins of Omission

The BBC's Jeremy Bowen files a love letter to report on Hamas that fails to mention the organisations frequent and alarming acts of terrorism, those pesky gangland-style executions they carried out in their civil war with the equally-vile Fatah (or that civil war with Fatah), their raving anti-Semitism, their refusal to recognise standing international agreements, their Islamist fundamentalism, or ties to Iran.

However, it does includes a long, gushing quote from the BBC's senior correspondent in Gaza the "excellent Fayed Abu Shamala" on how the ever-so moderate Hamas is just trying to restore order and really shouldn't be treated harshly at all, but leaves out one tiny detail that, if known, might bring the impartiality of Mr. Shamala and the man who calls him "excellent" into question. According to Tom Gross (emphasis added):

Some of the foreign BBC staff are quite open about their sympathies for Hamas. The senior BBC Arabic Service correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Fayad Abu Shamala, told a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001, (attended by the then Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin) that journalists and media organizations in Gaza, including the BBC, are "waging the campaign [of resistance/terror against Israel] shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people (and Hamas in particular, it seems-- ed.) ."

The best the BBC could do in response to requests from Israel that they distance themselves from these remarks at the time, was to issue a statement saying, "Fayad's remarks were made in a private capacity. His reports have always matched the best standards of balance required by the BBC."

Balance indeed. The BBC prides itself on covering the full spectrum of opinion: Centre left, left, far left, and now Islamofascist.