Can You Imagine? BBC Deceives on Bethlehem Again - by Ricki Hollander

The BBC, however, has no interest in exploring Palestinian responsibility for any problems in any sector of the Palestinian community– whether due to its leaders’ corruption and political ploys, or whether due to the terrorism and violence they encourage that impacts tourism and prompts Israeli security measures.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA..
27 December '19..

If anyone was in doubt about whether the BBC still engages in agenda-driven reporting, the recent broadcasts from Bethelehem would put any such doubt to rest.

Barbara Plett Usher, notorious for her tearful eulogy of arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat and her participation in BBC’s longtime campaign to delegtimize Israel, was sent to Bethlehem to report about Christmas there.

There is an inverse relationship between the extent of Palestinian violence and the amount of tourism in Bethlehem. In 2015-6, at the height of the so-called Palestinian knife intifada, tourism plummeted. In the years since, violent attacks have decreased and tourism has picked up tremendously. For the past few years, there has been a steady rise in the numbers of tourists visiting Bethlehem, with this year topping even last year’s record high. The city is bustling with tourists and good cheer.

Plett forces the story into an artificial one about Palestinian suffering under Israel.

This, however, was not the story the BBC wanted to convey. The media network instead delivered a fairy tale about a Bethlehem diminished by an evil Israeli occupation. Barbara Plett Usher attempted to fit her Bethlehem 2019 tale into a rigid template of Palestinians suffering under “occupation” – even when the interviewees did not provide the answers she sought.

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Another Gaza healthcare story the BBC chooses to ignore - by Hadar Sela

Apparently the BBC is not interested in stories relating to healthcare in the Gaza Strip if they cannot be used to promote the inaccurate view that (as also claimed by Hamas) that the system’s many problems are primarily attributable to Israel’s counter-terrorism measures and the roles of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in creating and exacerbating the crisis cannot be airbrushed from the story.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
24 October '19..

In early August we noted that work had begun on a sixteen-department field hospital near the Erez Crossing at the north of the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinian Authority was objecting to the project.

“Although BBC audiences are told plenty about the dire state of medical services in the Gaza Strip, they rarely hear about the PA actions which exacerbate that situation such as the longstanding insufficient supply of medications. Whether or not they will be informed of this latest own goal from the Palestinian Authority remains to be seen.”

Despite the fact that the BBC has a staffed office in the Gaza Strip, audiences have indeed heard nothing about the new hospital or the Palestinian Authority’s specious claim that the field hospital was “part of a plan to separate the West Bank from the Gaza Strip”.

Since then the PA’s official media has managed to come up with even more bizarre claims – as reported by PMW.

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Inappropriate BBC Imagery Implies Israeli Airstrikes Target Children - by Simon Plosker

Whether Israel is responsible for this incident, it’s air force never deliberately targets civilians. The BBC’s placement of its graphic video image is inflammatory, misleading and inappropriate.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
09 September '19..

Unidentified aircraft, widely believed to be Israeli, carried out overnight airstrikes on targets belonging to Iran-backed militias near Syria’s border with Iraq.

The BBC‘s report states:

It was not clear who carried out the overnight strikes in and around the town of Albu Kamal.

But Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on Iranian-linked targets in Syria during the country’s civil war.

It has sought to thwart what it calls Iran’s “military entrenchment” in Syria and shipments of Iranian weapons to militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Having made it clear that Israel is the prime suspect (which is entirely possible, even probable), this text is followed by a video. Here is a screenshot of the video image:

An emotive and disturbing image of a Kurdish child disfigured by an airstrike.

But when included just after text suggesting that Israel has just carried out an airstrike, it is clear what the average reader will take away.

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Surprise? BBC News glosses over repeated Palestinian violence at holy site - by Hadar Sela

Despite its public purpose obligation to provide audiences with “impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them” the BBC chooses to euphemistically frame regular breaches of that agreement as “friction” attributed to the site itself rather than to the Palestinians actually throwing firebombs, explosives or rocks.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
27 March '19..

Visitors to the BBC News website on March 20th found a report titled “Two Palestinians killed in clashes in Nablus” which opened as follows:

“Two Palestinian men have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military said explosive devices were hurled from a car at troops guarding Jewish worshippers at Joseph’s Tomb in the city of Nablus.

The troops opened fire, killing two assailants, it added.”

The report later went on to inform readers that: [emphasis added]

“Joseph’s Tomb – which is revered by Jews and Muslims as the burial place of the son of the biblical patriarch Jacob – has been a source of friction in the past.

It is in an area under Palestinian civilian control, but Jewish pilgrims are permitted to visit several times a year under Israeli military protection.”

Also of significance to Christians, the site is in fact:

“…located inside Area A of the West Bank, under complete Palestinian Authority control. The IDF bars Israeli citizens from entering Area A without prior authorization.”

The BBC did not bother to explain to readers of this report the meaning of the phrase “a source of friction in the past”. The last time audiences saw any BBC reporting on such so-called “friction” was in October 2015 when Palestinian rioters set fire to the tomb. Since then repeated attacks on both the site itself and security forces guarding visiting worshippers have gone unreported. For example:

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Dear BBC, Hamas is not ‘seen’ as a terrorist group, it is a terrorist group. - by Karen Harradine

The BBC is out of step with what many know to be true – that Hamas is a terrorist organisation which is happy to sacrifice its own people in its genocidal attempts to destroy Israel. Should war happen, we can count on the BBC to blame Israel for any loss of life while making excuses for the jihadists who terrorise not only Israelis but their own people. Most of the Arab world, and indeed the Gazans, are furious with Hamas. Yet the BBC would have us believe they’re freedom fighters.

Karen Harradine..
Conservativewoman.co.uk..
27 March '19..

THE people of Gaza have had enough. They are tired of having their homes, schools and hospitals used as launch pads for Hamas’s endless war against Israel, and tired of subsisting in abject poverty while their leaders live in luxury.

Since seizing power from Fatah in 2007, Hamas has controlled the Gaza strip. It uses Gazans as human shields in its attempts to destroy Israel and turn it into another Islamist state. Hamas leaders are millionaires, grown rich on stealing from their own people billions of pounds in donations from the UN and Western governments.

Two weeks ago Gaza residents took to the streets shouting the slogan ‘We want to live’. Their protests were ignited by Hamas’s planned tax increases which will increase hardship for most Palestinians already dealing with exorbitant living costs, poverty, high unemployment rates and poor infrastructure. The protesters put the blame for their plight solely on Hamas. In response, Hamas security forces beat and arrested dozens of demonstrators, including students and human right activists, and in some instances used live fire on them.

According to reports by the Fatah media, Hamas targeted 17 journalists during the protests and arrested seven. Several were beaten and had their phones confiscated. Hamas is also suspected of breaking the fingers of a Palestinian writer and beating him so badly that he had to be hospitalised.

Almost a week later (19 March) the BBC finally decided to report on the uprising against Hamas. Trying her best to blame Israel and downplay Hamas culpability, the reporter, at 20.30 minutes in, describes Hamas as ‘widely seen as a terrorist group’. But Hamas is not ‘seen’ as a terrorist group, it is a terrorist group.

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Is There Only One Street in Hebron? One Street? Really, BBC? One Street? - by Sheri Oz

...The Palestinian Arabs, aided by their anti-Israel accomplices, complain that in their largest city in Judea & Samaria, their most prosperous city by far, they are in danger of extinction because of the Jews. As long as one Jew remains to breath Arab air they will complain and cry foul. And their Jewish stooges, such as those in Breaking the Silence, will remain ready and willing to do their heavy lifting for them.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
23 February '19..

The BBC produced a beautiful website promoting anti-Israeli Breaking-the-Silence propaganda on a sleek enviable platform. They called it: “Hebron: One Street, two sides“. Take a look at it; this is the quality of material Israel should be producing. Here, I want to contest the very title they gave this work. At the end, I will tell you what we can understand from the obsession with this one street.

Hebron: One Street?

Yes, there is one street everyone talks about. But is Hebron made up of only one street? Hardly. But that one street is great for propaganda purposes. To the Arabs, that street is Shuhada (Martyrs) Street and to Jewish Israelis it is King David Street. It has been labeled a “ghost town” by anti-Zionist activists.

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Surprised That BBC Distorts Reality of Life in Hebron? - by Emanuel Miller

Why did the BBC give a platform to a political lobby such as Breaking the Silence, without subjecting their claims to even the most basic of fact-checking? Why was an unsubstantiated and seemingly false statement allowed to pass without any examination or comment?

Emanuel Miller..
Honest Reporting..
21 February '19..

A flashy new feature on the BBC website entitled “Hebron: One street, two sides,” takes one of the most complex places in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and creates a spectacularly misleading and one-sided narrative.

The feature, which seems to be heavily influenced by the Breaking the Silence organization and Palestinian talking points, repeatedly allows the Palestinian subjects to make unsubstantiated claims unopposed while under-representing the Israeli side of the story.

The presentation starts with a screen describing Hebron as “the only Jewish settlement… in the middle of a Palestinian urban centre.” This is only half the story. In reality, Hebron has a Jewish history dating back millennia. Despite facing centuries of persecution, discrimination and massacres in the city under Islamic and Christian control, the Jewish community has always come back and re-established itself.

The text continues, telling readers that “There have been 128 attacks carried out by Palestinians in Hebron and its surroundings 2015-18,” without making clear that many of these attacks included murders and attempted murders of civilians, with one particularly gruesome attack on a 13 year-old Israeli child sleeping in her bed, for example.

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Courtesy of BBC Radio Ulster, audiences hear that ‘Israel should be wiped off the map’ - by Hadar Sela

...not for the first time ,we see that unfettered defamation, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel – along with promotion of the antisemitic denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination – gets a free pass on BBC Northern Ireland radio stations.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
12 February '19..

On January 30th the BBC News website published an article that included the BBC’s response to calls from supporters of the anti-Israel BDS campaign to boycott the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.

Notwithstanding the BBC’s statement on the issue, the following day – January 31st – BBC Northern Ireland’s BBC Radio Ulster decided to air a long phone-in item on its ‘Talkback’ programme hosted by William Crawley. Titled “Is the BBC right to take part in Eurovison being held in Tel Aviv, or should the corporation stay away?”, the item included contributions from journalist/activist Eamonn McCann and historian Ruth Dudley Edwards as well as seven callers.

On the hook of the Eurovision Song Contest, listeners heard thirty-eight minutes of mostly unchallenged falsehoods and delegitimisation – often outstanding for their ignorance even by the ‘standards’ of BBC Radio Ulster.

Having informed listeners in his introduction that “Jerusalem is a disputed capital” and after noting the BBC’s statement on the call to boycott May’s event in Tel Aviv, Crawley invited listeners to phone in.

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The BBC’s continuing monochrome framing of Gaza’s chronic utilities crisis - by Hadar Sela

...Although BBC audiences have long been steered towards the inaccurate view that (as also claimed by Hamas) all the economic and humanitarian problems in the Gaza Strip are attributable to Israeli counter-terrorism measures, while the roles of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in creating and exacerbating the crisis are downplayed or airbrushed from the story, that framing clearly does not meet the BBC’s obligation to provide its funding public with “accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming of the highest editorial standards”.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
17 January '19..

Last month the BBC aired reports from the Gaza Strip presented by Radio 4’s Mishal Husain which included multiple references to issues concerning water, electricity and sewage.

As was noted here at the time:

“…listeners heard that “more than 90% of the population don’t have access to safe drinking water” and that “the desalination system in Gaza has broken down” because of “electricity”. No effort was made to clarify the full background to those statements or to explain that – as the BBC knows – the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip (and resulting problems with water and sewage) has nothing to do with “the blockade”.”

The portrayal of those issues focused mainly on framing them as being primarily attributable to Israel’s counter-terrorism measures while no effort was made to explain the role of Hamas terrorism in bringing about those measures. The effects of Hamas’ financial prioritisation of terrorism over civilian welfare, its chronic mismanagement of services and utilities and infrastructure and the influence of the Hamas-Fatah split on the situation in the Gaza Strip were not adequately explained in the BBC’s reporting.

Like other BBC reporters before her, Mishal Husain did not bother to clarify that the “shortage of clean water” in the Gaza Strip is the result of years of over-pumping.

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Tracking the changes in BBC reporting of Palestinian demand for ‘right of return’ - by Hadar Sela

...The term “ancestral land” is of course often used in reference to lands belonging to an indigenous cultural people or community as well as in connection to the place of origin of previous generations. The BBC’s widespread introduction of the non-neutral terms “ancestral lands”, “ancestral homes” and “ancestral homelands” over the past nine months into multiple platform reporting on the topic of the Palestinian demand for ‘right of return’ is hence particularly noteworthy – and all the more so given that audiences were serially denied important background information in the same reports.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
01 January '19..

In July 2013 the BBC News website produced a backgrounder intended to inform audiences about what it considered to be the five “Core Issues” of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians: Jerusalem, borders, settlements, refugees and security. Although that backgrounder is no longer available online in its original form, in a section titled ‘refugees’ the Palestinian position was presented thus:

“Formally, they maintain the “right of return”, arguing that without it a great injustice would not be put right. However, there has been regular talk among Palestinians that this “right” could be met by compensation.”

In other words, the BBC presented the Palestinian demand for the ‘right of return’ for refugees as a formality and steered audiences towards the view that the issue would be resolved on a practical level by means of compensation.

Over the past nine months, however, audiences have seen changes in the BBC’s presentation of that topic – primarily but not exclusively in reporting on the ‘Great Return March’ events.

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Another story BBC audiences are unlikely to be told - by Hadar Sela

...Not only are BBC audiences highly unlikely to ever hear that story but – despite being obliged under the terms of its Charter to provide “impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them” – the corporation will doubtless continue to describe that area and others as ‘occupied Palestinian land’.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
03 December '18..

As has often been noted here – most recently in relation to the Airbnb story – according to the BBC’s chosen narrative, any place which fell on the Jordanian side of the 1949 ceasefire lines is ‘Palestinian land’ (regardless of the fact that the Armistice Agreement specifically stated that the ceasefire lines were not borders) and any community populated by Israelis in those areas is a ‘Jewish settlement’ in either ‘East Jerusalem’ or ‘the West Bank’ which is portrayed as being ‘illegal under international law’ regardless of its history.

There is no place at all in the BBC’s simplistic and politically partisan narrative for nuances such as the fact that Jews lived for centuries in the Old City of Jerusalem before being ethnically cleansed by the Jordanian army. Neither is there any room in that frequently promoted portrayal for facts concerning places such as Neve Ya’akov or Gush Etzion where Jews legally purchased land years before the belligerent Jordanian invasion.

Last week a 22 year-long legal case came to an end.

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More of the same Gaza framing from BBC Radio 4 programme ‘PM‘ - by Hadar Sela

...While the British surgeon remarked that “this volume of severe injuries is something that most countries never see” in both versions of the report, Bateman made no effort to explain to BBC audiences that those injuries could have been avoided had Hamas – which is also in charge of the local health system described by Bateman as “already under huge pressure” – not planned, encouraged, facilitated and financed this particular terror project.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
26 November '18..

Listeners to the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘PM‘ on November 23rd heard an item which was rather clumsily and confusingly introduced by presenter Jonny Dymond.

[emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

Dymond: “Nearly six thousand residents of Gaza have suffered bullet wounds over the course of this year as Israeli soldiers have attempted to drive them back from the tightly packed strip of land in which they live and southern Israel – the border between the two. Most of those injuries are to young men who have been hit in the leg – shot in the leg. All of them require medical assistance of course and doctors in Gaza have become pretty adept at treating such injuries, assisted by John Wolfe, a retired consultant vascular surgeon from St. Mary’s Hospital in West London. Our Middle East correspondent Tom Bateman reports.”

Over the past eight months we have repeatedly documented the fact that the BBC has downplayed or erased Hamas’ role in initiating, organising and facilitating the ‘Great Return March’ violent rioting along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

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BBC News once again ignores abuse of Israeli humanitarian aid to Gaza - by Hadar Sela

...With its audiences being repeatedly steered towards the inaccurate belief that all the economic and humanitarian problems in the Gaza Strip are attributable to Israeli counter-terrorism measures, it is significant that once again the BBC has shown no interest in reporting a story which clarifies why such measures are necessary.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
25 November '18..

On November 22nd the Israel Security Agency announced that it had uncovered attempts by Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip to establish a terror network in Judea and Samaria. The plot included exploitation of Israel’s humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“The Hamas operation was uncovered with the arrest of Oweis Rajoub, 25, an alleged member of the terrorist group from the Palestinian village of Dura, near Hebron, on September 23, the Shin Bet said.

The goal of the West Bank cells was to conduct large terror attacks against Israeli military and civilians targets at the same time as rockets and mortar shells were being fired from the Gaza Strip, in order to challenge Israel on two fronts simultaneously, the internal security service said. […]

The coordination and planning between the operatives in the West Bank and Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip were conducted, in part, by Palestinians travelling from the coastal enclave to hospitals in Israel. Gazan businessmen with permits allowing them to travel to the West Bank were also reportedly found to have passed messages between the two groups. […]

In August, Rajoub received a cellphone from his Hamas handlers. A few days later, he was told to go to Bethlehem to meet with a woman who gave him “trousers into which a cloth strip had been sewn on which instructions for using his phone had been written,” the Shin Bet said.

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As expected, more inadequate BBC reports on the Airbnb story - by Hadar Sela

...The BBC did not bother to inform its audiences that Airbnb hosts in a plethora of countries including Algeria, Malaysia and Bangladesh would “have no choice but to discriminate against guests based on national or ethnic origin” because those countries do not allow entry to the holders of Israeli passports. As in the previous written report, readers were not informed that Airbnb does business in numerous other disputed locations – for example northern Cyprus and Western Sahara.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
23 November '18..

Despite having already published a report on exactly the same story late the previous evening, on the morning of November 20th the BBC News website published an article titled “Airbnb: Israeli uproar as firm bars West Bank settlements“.

A video embedded into the article also appeared separately on the BBC News website’s Middle East page on November 21st under the title “The West Bank homes being dropped from Airbnb“.

In that filmed report from Gush Etzion – where Jews purchased land long before the Jordanian invasion and occupation in 1948 – viewers were told that:

“Built on land occupied after the 1967 Six Day War, the settlements are seen as illegal under international law.”

In the written report readers were similarly told that:

“Jewish settlements in territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.”

Obviously this story in particular requires full audience understanding of the topic of ‘settlements’ and ‘international law’ but nevertheless the BBC elected once again to ignore its editorial obligation of “due impartiality” by erasing from audience view the existence of legal opinions which contradict the BBC’s selected narrative.

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The BBC News website framing of the Airbnb listings story - by Hadar Sela

...The BBC did not bother to clarify to its audiences that the said ‘report’ produced by the political NGOs ‘Human Rights Watch’ and ‘Kerem Navot’ is actually a political campaign focusing exclusively on Jewish Israelis which makes no mention whatsoever of Airbnb’s business in additional disputed locations around the world.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
20 November '18..

Late on November 19th the BBC News website published a report headlined “Airbnb removes Israeli West Bank listings” which was soon re-titled “Airbnb removes Israeli West Bank settlement listings”.

One hundred and twenty-three of the article’s 422 words summarised the announcement put out by the company while 129 words described subsequent reactions from the PLO’s Saeb Erekat, the Israeli tourism minister and a relevant Israeli organisation.

One hundred and fourteen words were given over to background information, including the BBC’s standard partisan mantra concerning ‘international law’:

“The West Bank settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.”

Readers were also told that:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? BBC World Service radio programme presents an inverted portrayal of Gaza rocket attacks - by Hadar Sela

...Obviously the basic editorial aim behind this item – which Ben James had told listeners was “your guide to the important stuff happening now” – was to promote a sense of false equivalence between the actions of terrorist groups deliberately targeting civilians and a regular army targeting the assets of those terrorist organisations. In promoting that aim the producers of this programme blithely sacrificed the accuracy and impartiality to which the BBC claims to adhere as well as the first of the corporation’s public purposes.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
16 November '18..

As we saw in a previous post, the lead item in the November 13th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme OS – formerly ‘Outside Source’ – was described in its synopsis thus:

“It’s the heaviest exchange of aerial fire between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants since the full-blown conflict in 2014. The violence follows an Israeli special forces operation inside Gaza which went wrong late on Sunday, causing the deaths of Palestinian militants and an Israeli soldier. We hear from local people living in Gaza.”

After listeners had been given some bizarre and entirely one-sided ‘context’ to that story (with no mention whatsoever of the fact that Hamas has been attacking Israeli civilians with rockets and mortars for 17 years), presenter Ben James introduced his first inadequately identified interviewee in what he had previously described as “your guide to the important stuff happening now”.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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BBC Radio 4's ‘The World Tonight’: nothing to see in southern Israel, move along to Gaza - by Hadar Sela

...throughout this entire seven-minute item and the news bulletin which came before it, BBC Radio 4 audiences heard nothing whatsoever about what was happening to the residents of southern Israel at that very time. A more one-sided portrayal of the story is difficult to imagine.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
14 November '18..

As we saw yesterday the BBC News website was not interested in telling BBC audiences about the numerous terrorists’ missiles which hit the homes and businesses of Israeli civilians in places such as Ashkelon, Sederot and Netivot on November 12th.

If readers are wondering whether the BBC’s domestic radio audiences got any better coverage, the answer to that question can be found by taking a look at BBC Radio 4’s November 12th edition of ‘The World Tonight’, presented by Ritula Shah.

Near the beginning of the programme listeners heard a news bulletin in which newsreader Chris Aldridge indulged himself with a less than accurate and impartial description of an Israeli Special Forces operation the previous night.

Aldridge: “Around 300 rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, prompting a wave of Israeli airstrikes. It follows what appears to have been a botched undercover Israeli operation in Gaza yesterday in which 7 Palestinians and one Israeli were killed. Our correspondent Tom Bateman reports from Jerusalem.”

Bateman: “A 19 year-old Israeli man was seriously hurt when a bus was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from the Strip. Israel said its fighter jets had targeted militant sites in Gaza in response to the barrage. Health officials in the Strip say two Palestinians have been killed – reportedly members of a militant faction. This significant escalation of hostilities makes the immediate prospects of a truce between Israel and Hamas even more unlikely, following a series of violent clashes in recent months which a UN and Egyptian brokered process was trying to calm. Militants in Gaza vowed to take revenge after yesterday’s incident in which undercover Israeli Special Forces were involved in an intense exchange of fire with Gaza based militants.”

By the time Radio 4 listeners heard that report homes in at least four Israeli communities had been hit by the terrorists’ missile fire and at least 34 people had needed medical treatment. Bateman however did not find that – or who fired the anti-tank missile; a detail also known by that time – worth mentioning.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Gaza related protest that the BBC ignored - by Hadar Sela

...With BBC journalists having managed to make the less than one and half-hour trip from their Jerusalem office to an Israeli community in the Western Negev just once in the last seven months, one might have thought that the fact that some of the region’s residents had come to them would have prompted some coverage. Unsurprisingly, given the corporation’s dismal record on informing its audiences of how Israeli civilians are affected by the violent rioting along the border and over eighteen years of rocket and mortar attacks by terror factions in the Gaza Strip, one would of course have been mistaken.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
09 November '18..

Since the BBC began reporting on the ‘Great Return March’ violent rioting over seven months ago, BBC audiences have seen the grand total of one minute and twenty seconds of coverage reflecting the point of view of residents of the Israeli communities close to the Gaza Strip-Israel border who are affected by the violence.

A two and a half minute BBC News video on a story ignored for three months

That July 12th interview with one kibbutz spokesperson related solely to the subject of the arson attacks perpetrated by the Gaza Strip rioters and did not address additional issues such as the severe air pollution caused by months of tyre burning along the border or the rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.

Rocket and mortar attacks have of course not been limited to the past seven months: they commenced in 2001 and their numbers rose following Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Who would've thought? Accuracy, impartiality and context lacking in BBC Two film on Gaza - by Hadar Sela

...Significantly, BBC Two audiences heard nothing whatsoever about Hamas’ agenda of destroying the Jewish state – or whether or not Reeve finds that and the terrorism against Israeli civilians which aims to bring that agenda about “utterly shocking and maddening”. Clearly impartiality and accuracy were not at the forefront of priorities for the makers of this context-lite (especially in comparison to Reeve’s previous efforts to explain the Cyprus conflict) segment of Simon Reeve’s film.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
07 November '18..

BBC Two has recently been showing a four-part series titled “Mediterranean with Simon Reeve” which will be available on BBC iPlayer for the next five months.

“Simon Reeve embarks on an extraordinary four-part journey around the Mediterranean, uncovering the wild extremes that lie behind the tourist veneer.”

In episode two of the series (also available here) its writer and presenter visited Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel and the Gaza Strip.

“Travelling south, Simon’s next stop is Israel, a country that perhaps more than any other depends on the Mediterranean for its survival. With few friends in the region, Israel has to transport most of its goods by sea. Simon joins the Israeli Navy who patrol the coast and protect the country’s offshore oil reserves using the latest military weaponry and technology, including unmanned, combat-ready drone boats.

From Israel Simon crosses one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders to reach the Gaza Strip. Palestinians and Israelis have endured a seemingly endless cycle of violence and in Gaza the result has been devastating destruction. Many building materials are restricted by an Israeli blockade on Gaza, but Simon meets an inspiring young woman who has helped reconstruction efforts by inventing an ingenious method of making bricks from ash. It’s a rare ray of hope in one of the most troubled regions of the Mediterranean.”

Informed viewers may well have raised an eyebrow at Reeve’s failure to mention the relevant context of UN Security Council resolutions forbidding the presence of armed militias in the area of southern Lebanon he described as “territory controlled by Hizballah” while en route to visit the terror organisation’s ‘museum’.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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BBC News continues to deny audiences relevant Jerusalem background information - by Hadar Sela

...While there is nothing new about the BBC’s failure to provide its audiences with the full range of information necessary for their understanding of the background to these stories concerning the relocation of foreign embassies to Jerusalem, the fact that it adopts that editorial policy – committed as it is to “due impartiality” under BBC editorial guidelines and even as it repeatedly tells audiences that “Jerusalem’s status is one of the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians” – is truly remarkable.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
05 November '18..

On November 2nd the BBC News website published its latest report on the proposed relocation of a foreign embassy to Jerusalem – “Israel’s Netanyahu welcomes Brazil Jerusalem embassy vow“.

“Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has welcomed a decision by Brazil’s president-elect to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Mr Netanyahu praised it as “historic, [and] correct”. Palestinians called the move “provocative and illegal”.

Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, expressed strong support for Israel during his election campaign.

Jerusalem’s status is one of the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for Palestinian state.”

As was the case in an article published last month, a problematic backgrounder video by Yolande Knell dating from December 2017 was promoted in this latest report. Later on readers found a typical BBC ‘nothing worth mentioning happened before 1967’ portrayal of the story’s background:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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