John Simpson’s defence of BBC reporting on Hamas disturbs …

A blog by the veteran broadcaster John Simpson that defended the BBC's position on Hamas has caused upset among some Jewish staff for invoking the Nazis.

The 600-word post, which was published on Thursday to set out why the BBC stops short of calling Hamas "terrorists", included a reference to the way in which the broadcaster picked its words during the Second World War.

Simpson wrote: "It's always been like this in the BBC.

During World War Two, BBC broadcasters were expressly told not to call the Nazis evil or wicked, even though we could and did call them 'the enemy'. 'Above all,' said a BBC document about all this, 'there must be no room for ranting.' Our tone had to be calm and collected."