Summary of complaint
We have received complaints from readers who felt that John Simpson's article was hypocritical and showed bias.
Our response
You may be aware that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has published a response to complaints from people unhappy that we have not used the word βterroristβ when referring to Hamas
We thought readers would also find John Simpsonβs comments of interest, as a ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World Affairs Editor with decades of experience of covering international conflicts in accordance with the Editorial Guidelines which underpin all ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ reporting.
As John pointed out in his news website article, although we donβt label people as terrorists ourselves, across ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News we still report the comments of others who do, while also making clear that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation.
Some people felt that in following this long-standing editorial convention β given the scale of the current atrocities β we were siding with Hamas against Israel. But in outlining his experiences John made the point that it is not our job to take sides.Β