No follow-up to the BBC’s ‘peace process in peril’ stories

Last week the BBC was keen to tell audiences what threatens the revival of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations - but this week?

Last week the BBC produced two items in which audiences were told that the start of work on preparations for laying infrastructure for a new community in Judea & Samaria was deliberately timed to hamper talks concerning negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.  

In an audio report broadcast on BBC Radio 4 listeners heard presenter Ritula Shah say:

“Well today’s announcement comes as President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner is due in Israel tomorrow to take part in talks on restarting the peace process. Nabil Abu Rudeinah is a spokesman for the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. He called today’s move a grave escalation and questioned the timing.”

They then heard from Abu Rudeinah:

“The resumption of these activities is a clear message to the American administration and to the efforts of President Trump. The American envoy is already in the area. Tomorrow President Abbas will be receiving him. This is an obstacle to the efforts of President Trump to resume the peace process.”

Later on in the same item listeners were told that “the biggest hurdle to peace is the settlement activity” and that the timing of the construction work was a “deliberate” attempt “to foil efforts by the American administration to revive negotiations”. 

In a written report published on the BBC News website on the same day, audiences found the following:

“A Palestinian official denounced the ground-breaking as a “grave escalation” and an attempt to thwart peace efforts. […]

Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters news agency that the ground-breaking was “a grave escalation and an attempt to foil efforts” by the administration of US President Donald Trump to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

With the mission of the US envoy allegedly so gravely imperiled by Israeli actions, one might have expected the BBC to produce some follow-up reporting on his visit to Ramallah. However, that has not been the case and so BBC audiences remain unaware of a different “hurdle to peace”.

The Times of Israel (and others) reported that:

“A meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and senior White House official Jared Kushner reportedly left the Palestinian leader fuming and refusing to agree to watered-down demands that Ramallah cut off payments for some convicted terrorists and their families.

According to Palestinian sources quoted in Hebrew and Arabic media Friday, Abbas and his advisers accused the US of taking Israel’s side and refused a demand to stop paying salaries to several hundred prisoners serving time for the most serious crimes. […]

Kushner began his meeting with Abbas by stating all the Israeli concerns, including stopping the payments, according to Hebrew media reports, angering Abbas.

“The American delegation accepted Israel’s position with regard to paying salaries to prisoners,” a Palestinian source told Ynet, “and described it as a means of inciting terror, demanding it be stopped.” […]

On Thursday Abbas defended payments to Palestinian prisoners, including convicted terrorists, as a “social responsibility,” and said Israel was using the issue as a pretext to avoid peace talks.”

Ynet added:

“Another issue that was dominant in the conversation itself was incitement to violence. The Palestinians expressed great disappointment that these two issues were the main things the Americans talked at the expense of the two-state solution.”

While the topic of ‘settlements‘ and their alleged negative affect on the possibility of reaching a two-state solution is one that the BBC has covered ad infinitum, the corporation has yet to provide its funding public with any serious reporting on the issues of PA/PLO payment of salaries to convicted terrorists and incitement to violence and glorification of terrorism by Palestinian officials.  

If, as it seems, those issues are now on the agenda of US officials attempting to restart negotiations then obviously a media organisation truly committed to providing its audiences with the background information that would enable understanding of the topic would not persist in denying its funding public such crucial context. 

Related Articles:

BBC News silence on PA terror rewards continues

A new backgrounder on a topic disregarded by the BBC

PA’s salaries for terrorists in the news again – but not at the BBC

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