BBC’s double standards on terrorism compromise accurate reporting

As regular readers well know, the BBC consistently refrains from describing politically motivated acts of violence against Israelis as terrorism and the people who execute such attacks as terrorists.

An example of the consequence of that editorial policy was seen in an article which appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page on January 2nd under the headline “Israel will no longer return bodies of Palestinian Hamas militants“.bodies-hamas

BBC audiences were told that:

“Israel will not return the bodies of Palestinian militants to their families, but will bury them instead, officials said.

Israel said it was taking measures to ensure the return of Israeli remains from Palestinian territory. […]

After the meeting of the security cabinet, the prime minister’s office released a brief statement on the decision.

“The security cabinet discussed ways to effect the return of fallen soldiers and of civilians held in the Gaza Strip … and decided that (the bodies of militants) should be buried, rather than returned,” the statement said.”

The PMO’s statement of course did not employ the term ‘militants’ and crucially the BBC’s censorship-by-paraphrasing conceals from audiences that the new policy relates to the bodies of Hamas terrorists killed whilst carrying out terror attacks – as was reported by Israeli media outlets.

“Israel will no longer give up the bodies of Hamas terrorists killed during attacks, but instead bury them, the high-level security cabinet decided on Sunday, launching a renewed effort to pressure the Palestinian group into returning two Israeli civilians and the remains of two soldiers.

Gaza-based Hamas is currently holding the remains of IDF soldiers Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul and Lt. Hadar Goldin, who the army says were killed in the 2014 Gaza war, and is also believed to be detaining Avraham Mengistu and Juma Ibrahim Abu Anima, two Israeli men who crossed into Gaza on their own accord. […]

“The political-security cabinet discussed standing policy on treatment of the bodies of Hamas terrorists killed during terror attacks and decided that they will not be returned, but will be buried,” a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office read.”

The BBC’s politically motivated editorial policy of denial of terrorism against Israelis has prevented it from reporting this story fully, accurately and impartially to its audiences.

Related Articles:

Reviewing BBC reporting of vehicular attacks in France and Israel

More mapping of BBC inconsistency in terrorism reporting

BBC News finds terror (without quotation marks) in Europe

BBC Complaints: terror attacks in Jerusalem and Tunisia are “very different”

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