Jun 19 2013

More evidence of BBC double standards on terrorism

In a ninety word article dated June 14^th 2013, the BBC rightly used the word ‘terrorist’, or versions of it, no fewer than five times.

But no – this is not ‘man seen on white donkey in Jerusalem’ week, or even a sign that the BBC has at long last come to its senses and begun describing Hamas or Hizballah activity for what it is.

This article is about a subject much closer to BBC home – terrorism in Northern Ireland – and it shows once again that the BBC’s supposed aversion to “value judgements” as outlined in the editorial guidelines on terrorism is entirely relative – and politically motivated.

Where can terrorism be named as such by the BBC?

When did the BBC lose the plot on terrorism?

Stop press! BBC uses word ‘terrorist’!

Jun 18 2013

BBC gets it right – on matkot and Waze

Proving once again that it can produce accurate and impartial reporting about Israel when it wants to, the BBC recently published an article by technology reporter Katia Moskvitch on the subject of Google’s acquisition of the Israeli company ‘Waze’ for a reported $1.3 billion. Also worth reading is Moskvitch’s 2011 report entitled “How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub“.

And then we have Yolande Knell’s engaging cameo of the world of ‘matkot’, which rightly received a lot of positive feedback on Twitter.

As we have noted before:

“Now of course none of these reports relates to ‘the conflict’, and so in these cases the BBC apparently does not feel the need to go beyond reporting news, but also to shape audience perception of it. But nevertheless these reports indicate that the BBC can report on Israel in a professional manner when it chooses to do so.”

Let’s hope to see more of this kind of accurate, impartial and – no less importantly – interesting reporting in the future.

Jun 17 2013

A BBC theme to watch

Over the past few days my Twitter timeline has been dominated by Iranian ex-pats tearing out their virtual hair at the portrayal of the new Iranian president-elect by much of the Western media (including the BBC) as a “moderate” and a “reformer”. This might be a good time to remember that not too long ago various talking heads were using the same terms to describe Bashar al Assad.

The indiscriminate use of such adjectives by Western journalists puts them in risky territory, clouding the fact that Hassan Rohani only managed to get where he now is because there is absolutely no chance of his initiating any kind of reform which will threaten the grip of the theocracy ruling Iran. As Sohrab Ahmari writes in the WSJ:

“So this is what democracy looks like in a theocratic dictatorship. Iran’s presidential campaign season kicked off last month when an unelected body of 12 Islamic jurists disqualified more than 600 candidates. Women were automatically out; so were Iranian Christians, Jews and even Sunni Muslims. The rest, including a former president, were purged for possessing insufficient revolutionary zeal. Eight regime loyalists made it onto the ballots. One emerged victorious on Saturday.”

Over half the word-count of an article about the opening of the new exhibition at Auschwitz last week, which appeared on the BBC News website’s Europe and Middle East pages on June 13^th 2013, was dedicated to what the BBC termed “Iranian ‘threat’” – complete with scare quotes.

“Earlier in Warsaw, Mr Netanyahu accused Iran, one of Israel’s strongest foes, of planning a new Holocaust.” […]

“Mr Netanyahu used a visit to the Polish capital on Wednesday to warn that Iran was now a major threat to the Jews.

Iranians are going to the polls on Friday to elect a new president, with the hard-line incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not eligible for a third term.

Mr Netanyahu said the Iranian election on Friday would “change nothing” in the Islamic republic’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons.

“This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose to annihilate Israel’s six million Jews,” he said. “We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust.”

Tehran denies seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran is viewed as a threat in Israel because of its aggressive rhetoric, its support for militant groups in the region, its arsenal of long-range missiles and its nuclear work.

However, critics of the Israeli prime minister have accused him of citing the Holocaust too frequently in the context of Iran.

Aluf Benn, editor of liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote in an editorial last week: “Shoah [Holocaust] warnings have taken over the political and military discourse.”

Another BBC article from June 16th was headlined “Iran election: Israel issues warning after Rouhani win” and opened:

“Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that international pressure on Iran must not be loosened in the wake of the election of reformist-backed Hassan Rouhani as president.

Mr Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear programme must be stopped “by any means” and there should be no “wishful thinking” about Mr Rouhani’s victory.

The cleric won just over 50% of the vote in Friday’s election.

He said his election was a “victory of moderation over extremism”. “

Later in the report – presumably hiding behind the excuse of impartiality – the BBC once again promotes doubts about the Iranian regime’s nuclear intentions:

”Israel and some Western powers suspect Iran’s nuclear programme may be a front for making weapons, but Tehran insists it is purely peaceful.”

The synergistic themes in these two BBC articles are of a supposed new dawn of “moderation” in an Iran which the BBC is apparently not convinced has designs to develop a military nuclear capability, coupled with a message of Israeli over-reaction. Any objective assessment of those promoted themes must of course take into account that Iran’s president-elect is not the man ultimately in charge, as an article in The Tower points out:

“Rouhani’s win … should not be seen as a dramatic sign that Iran will change its line regarding either its nuclear policy or its involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Despite Rouhani’s declarations in the past that may suggest he seeks flexibility in the nuclear project, the reality in Iran is that these matters will remain in the hands of Khamenei and the men of the Revolutionary Guard.”

“Victory for a candidate who is perceived as more moderate yet still has the confidence of Khamenei, serves the regime in the best way. Externally, Iran today is in a very difficult situation with regard to sanctions and its international standing. A conservative president would only have increased Tehran’s isolation in the world. A victory for someone from the ‘moderate stream,’ however, will immediately bring certain countries in the international community to call for ‘giving a chance to dialogue with the Iranian moderates.’ They will ask for more time in order to encourage this stream, and it will take pressure off the regime.”

BBC speculations regarding a theoretical Israeli strike on Iran to prevent it from reaching military nuclear capability have been a regular feature for some years now – see for example here, here, here, here and here. Notably, the mirror question of whether Iran will attack Israel is not asked. The value of the BBC’s future coverage of the subject will of course depend upon how quickly it manages to disavail itself of the notion that anything significant has changed in Tehran since Rohani’s election.

Jun 16 2013

BBC’s Knell uses F1 to amplify PA propaganda on Jerusalem

Israeli readers of the headline to a June 14^th report by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Yolande Knell, which appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website, might logically have assumed that it referred to disgruntled Jerusalemites upset about two days of traffic restrictions in their city last week due to the Formula One event held there.

But they would have been wrong. Upon further reading we learn that Knell’s “controversy” predictably involves the usual one-trick phoney outrage from “Palestinian officials” and is in fact no more than a journalistic hook upon which to hang yet another BBC advancement of the PA’s political narrative.

“Tens of thousands of spectators have turned out to watch Formula 1 racing teams roar around the edge of Jerusalem’s Old City.

A showcase event over the past two days featured the Ferrari and Marussia teams.

The mayor said the idea was to promote peace and bring together people of different faiths.

However Palestinian officials saw it as an Israeli attempt to show sovereignty over the disputed city.

Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital.”

Knell of course neglects to clarify for her readers that Israel does have sovereignty over the city, which – despite recurrent BBC claims to the contrary – is Israel’s capital.

Knell writes:

“However Palestinian officials did not share that enthusiasm.

“The Israelis are trying all different ways to project their own agenda, including through sport,” said the Palestinian Authority Governor of Jerusalem district, Adnan Husseini.

“They are trying to show the issue of Jerusalem is resolved and that there is peace and stability. Actually it isn’t true. It’s not the fact.” “

So, “Palestinian officials” are in fact one person bearing a fairly meaningless title – Adnan Husseini – who was described by Knell in the original version of the article as being the “Governor of Jerusalem”. That bizarre error was quietly amended several hours later.

In the interests of context, transparency, impartiality and accuracy, it would have been appropriate for Knell to inform her audiences that Adnan Husseini (yes, he is a descendent of the notorious former Mufti) has quite a history of denying Jewish and Israeli connections to Jerusalem.

“It’s not a simple matter. The excavations are being carried out [by Israel] in accordance with an entire political program of Judaization, falsification of history, exploitation of this falsification for Zionist propaganda in the West and throughout the world, to prove that they have some connection to Jerusalem.” (June 12, 2012, Palestinian TV)

“The Jerusalem district [administration] published an announcement yesterday under the heading ‘Jerusalem’s Archaeological Landmarks, Ancient History, and Israel’s Ongoing Assault’, to inform people about some of the many archaeological, religious and historical landmarks in Jerusalem. Jerusalem District Governor, Engineer Adnan Husseini, said that the announcement comes as the city is subject to an Israeli campaign of forgery, aimed at erasing its Islamic and Christian landmarks, and highlighting its Jewish character. Husseini declared that some of the active national institutions, including the Jerusalem District, the National Committee, and the like, bear the burden of focusing attention on feverish attempts at Judaization to which these landmarks are subject.” (September 18^th, 2012, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)

“It cannot be that Jerusalem will someday be part of the State of Israel. Every inch of Jerusalem is always speaking the Arabic-Palestinian-Islamic-Christian language. The resolve of the residents of Jerusalem and their struggle against all the oppressive, settling and colonizing acts, prove this… The invasions of Al-Aqsa, for example, what do they prove? In other words, why do they want to drag us into a religious war?” (October 19^th, 2012, Palestinian TV) [emphasis added]

Oh dear! It seems that Mr Husseini is not even content to limit himself to demanding “East” Jerusalem alone as the capital of a Palestinian state. Perhaps that explains why he is so outraged by a sporting event which in actual fact took place in areas of the city he and his PA colleagues are not supposed to find remotely controversial – at least according to the narrative as it is understood by their Western donors.

How very revealing it is that Yolande Knell chose to politicise what could have been a factual and impartial report on a sporting event by showcasing Husseini’s baseless histrionics and that in doing so, she opted as a volunteer mouthpiece for the amplification of the opinions of a man who promotes the offensive racist trope of the ‘Juadization’ of Jerusalem.

Jun 16 2013

Photo caption on BBC Golan Heights profile page corrected

Before:

After:

Unfortunately, the other errors noted in that article have yet to be corrected.

Jun 14 2013

BBC captions photo of tourist attraction as “army position”

An article appearing on the Middle East page of the BBC News website on June 11^th 2013 related to the withdrawal of Austrian members of UNDOF from the Golan Heights.

The article is reasonably impartial, but includes two inaccuracies. It describes the Quneitra crossing as:

“..the only open crossing between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights”

Quneitra cannot be accurately described as an “open crossing” as it is used on a regular basis only by members of UN forces and – with prior co-ordination and after the issue of the appropriate permits – by members of the Golan Druze community studying in Syria. It is also used on occasion by Druze from the Golan villages getting married in Syria or Syrian Druze getting married in the Golan, by Druze pilgrims to Syria and as a point of entry for the trade of apples grown in the Druze villages, with the coordination of the Red Cross. Tourists or civilians who do not belong to the Druze community cannot use the crossing.

The article also states:

“Syria’s deployment of tanks in the demilitarised zone violates ceasefire agreements in place since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973..”

Whilst the Yom Kippur war certainly began in October 1973, the ceasefire agreements only came into being at the end of May 1974.

On the Middle East homepage, the article was presented together with two ‘related articles’, one of which is the BBC’s profile of the Golan Heights.

We have already addressed the subject of inaccuracies in the “overview” section of that profile here, but in the “timeline” section we also find an inaccurately captioned photograph.

That photograph was in fact taken at Mount Bental, which is not “an army position” as claimed by the BBC, but a tourist attraction run by Kibbutz Merom Golan. The metal cut-out soldier on the left of the BBC’s picture can be seen in the photograph below from the opposite angle – with the site’s decidedly un-military coffee shop in the background.

Jun 12 2013

BBC promotes ‘Peace Now’ campaign material yet again

For the fourth time in thirty-four days (see here and here) the BBC News website once again promoted the agenda of the political NGO ‘Peace Now’ on the Middle East page of its website on June 10th 2013 in an article entitled “Israeli figures show spike in new settler homes“.

With absolutely no attempt made to inform audiences of the political agenda of the body it quotes (in contravention of section 4.4.14 of the BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality), the first half of the article is devoted entirely to the ‘churnalistic‘ reproduction of parts of a ‘Peace Now’ statement published the previous day, peppered with statements from a PLO representative.

The BBC report states:

“A report by Israeli settlement watchdog, Peace Now, says they have reached a seven-year high.”

The ‘Peace Now’ statement is titled:

“Construction Starts in Settlements Reach 7 Year High; Inside Israel Construction Starts Decrease.”

The basis for the “seven-year high” claim becomes rather dubious when one looks at the actual statistics, taking into account that the ‘Peace Now’ statement relates to constructions begun (not completed) in the first quarter of 2013. The statistics do not prove a quarterly breakdown for the years 2007 to 2010 or for the first three quarters of 2011, and so it is difficult to determine whether 865 units commenced in the first quarter of 2013 (out of a total of 10,304 in the whole of Israel in the same quarter) does indeed represent a “seven-year high” in comparison to a total of 2,324 units begun throughout 2008, for example. If the remaining three quarters of 2013 do not show more than 1,459 additional construction starts in total, then that claim will be of no consequence.

The BBC article states:

“Building began in 865 settler homes in the first quarter of this year compared to 313 in the same period of 2012.”

Later it adds:

“Figures released last month by the Central Bureau of Statistics detail construction across Israel. The construction of new settler homes in the occupied West Bank represented the highest year-on-year increase.”

The ‘Peace Now’ statement says:

“Between January 2013 and March 2013 construction of 865 new housing units began. This is three times as many construction starts compared to the same quarter last year (January-March 2012). If compared to the final quarter of last year (October-December 2012), this is an astonishing 355% increase.” [emphasis added]

At least the BBC refrained from trying to persuade its readers that 313 x 3 is 865.

The BBC report also states:

“According to Peace Now, many new units were located in the settlements of Modin Illit and Beitar Illit.”

From the ‘Peace Now’ statement we learn that “many” is in fact 506 (well over half of the total), with 241 constructions indeed begun in Modi’in Ilit and 265 in Beitar Ilit – both of which are located in the large blocs near to the 1949 ceasefire line in Area C which, under any realistic scenario, will remain under Israeli control if and when final status negotiations on the subject of Area C as stipulated in the Oslo Accords ever come about. The BBC, however, neglects to provide its readers with that information.

According to the Jerusalem Post, all the building in Modi’in Ilit and Beitar Ilit is the result of building permits issued before Secretary of State Kerry’s latest initiative commenced (he was only sworn in on February 1^st 2013 – a third of the way into the said quarter) and so the BBC’s attempt to insinuate linkage between the number of building projects commenced and Kerry’s efforts to restart the peace process is redundant. Although not noted either by ‘Peace Now’ or the BBC, we also learn from the Jerusalem Post that:

“According to the CBS, in contrast to the housing starts data, the number of finished homes in Judea and Samaria has dropped by 13% in the first quarter of 2013, from 310 in the first three months of 2012, to 251 for the first three months of this year.

Overall the number of finished homes in Judea and Samaria has dipped significantly. In 2009, there were 2,063 finished homes, in 2010 that number was 1,670. It stayed relatively the same in 2011, with 1,682 finished homes. It dropped in 2012 to 1,269 finished homes.”

The BBC article continues with the usual pro forma promotion of the Palestinian narrative and inevitable partisan interpretations of “international law”:

“Palestinians insist they will only resume direct talks if Israel stops construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land that they claim, along with the Gaza Strip, for a future state.

Israel, which captured those areas in the 1967 Middle East war, says there should be no “preconditions” for talks and that no settlement freeze will be publicly ordered.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.”

Clearly, the aim of this article is to further advance the narrative of Israeli construction in specific areas as the main obstacle to the resumption of peace negotiations. Whilst we expect no different from the representative of the PLO negotiating team or from a campaigning political NGO dependent for its funding upon the promotion of that narrative, BBC audiences have every reason to expect that a broadcaster committed to accuracy and impartiality would provide them with the bigger picture rather than blind repetition of a ‘Peace Now’ statement garnished with a few additions.

But on this subject the BBC has long since given up trying to be accurate and impartial and does not even entertain the idea of providing background or context which might help audiences understand the lack of practical significance of the beginning of construction of 506 housing units in areas which are extremely unlikely to ever come under Palestinian control or the fact that this particular PA precondition for restarting talks is just one of many currently placing spokes in the wheels of progress.

As is also the case with the subject of Palestinian prisoners (another of the PA’s preconditions), the BBC does not deviate from the narrative promoted by the PA and various political NGOs. Rather than reporting the news, it has allowed itself to become part and parcel of a political campaign to frame audience perceptions of the issue, as demonstrated by its repeated use (not for the first time: see here and here) of the bizarre and intentionally pejorative term “settler homes”.

Whilst use of the word ‘homes’ or ‘housing units’ would have definitely sufficed, instead the BBC has embraced the use of a delegitimising phrase found in use particularly in the Palestinian and Arabic media (though by no means exclusively – AFP’s local reporter seems to be notably fond of the phrase) such as the PNN, the Palestine Chronicle, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Qatar’s the Peninsula, Hizballah’s Al Manar and the Gulf Times, as well as by representatives of the PLO and its dominant faction Fatah.

Are these really the type of ideological birds of a feather with which the BBC wishes to identify itself through the adoption of their politically motivated terminology?

BBC amplifies ‘Peace Now’ campaign

Promoted and quoted: the BBC’s preferred Middle East NGOs

‘Churnalism’ and the BBC

Jun 11 2013

Frequent BBC favourite Falk in the news

The UN’s ‘Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights’ Richard Falk is in the news again, this time due to the call on him to resign from the post which recently came from America’s Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe.

“Mr. Falk’s most recent statement, which he dramatically and recklessly included in an official UN document, … once again starkly demonstrated that he is unfit to serve in his role as a UN special rapporteur,” she said, adding: “We once again call for his resignation.”

The statement to which Ambassador Chamberlain Donahoe refers is Falk’s call for an investigation into the NGO UN Watch after that organization called for the termination of Falk’s mandate in the wake of his remarks concerning the Boston marathon terror attack which included the following:

”The war drums are beating at this moment in relation to both North Korea and Iran, and as long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy.” […]

”The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.”

Of course one would have to have one’s head pretty firmly buried in the sand not to be aware of the fact that Falk’s history of inaccurate and offensive statements goes back a very long way indeed. From his 1979 New York Times puff-piece in defence of Ayatollah Khomeini, through to his claims that the 9/11 terror attacks were orchestrated by the US government, his repeated justifications of Palestinian terror and his public support for the ‘one-state solution’ (i.e. the eradication of Israel as the Jewish state), Falk has never been far from controversy.

That fact was well known by the BBC when Falk took up his UN position in 2008, as an article by Tim Franks from April of that year shows.

In May 2008 the BBC’s Stephen Sackur interviewed Falk on ‘Hardtalk’, where he defended his use of anti-Semitic Nazi analogies.

And yet, the BBC – despite being bound to standards of accuracy and impartiality – has continued throughout the years to quote Falk on the subject of Israel extensively, unquestioningly and without properly informing its audiences of his long-standing history of bias and open animosity towards Israel.

Here, for example, is a 2010 article by Barbara Plett which promotes statements made by Falk on the subject of “settlements”.

Here is a 2012 report by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Yolande Knell on the subject of Palestinian hunger strikers which – whilst neglecting to mention their membership of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – also extensively promotes statements made by Falk.

And here is Knell yet again – this time in February 2013 – quoting Falk’s regurgitation of Palestinian Authority propaganda regarding Arafat Jaradat.

Most recently, on June 10th 2013, the BBC published yet another article based on statements by Falk. Towards the end of that piece it is noted that “[i]n 2008, Mr Falk drew widespread criticism for comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis”, but the article fails to make clear to readers the antisemitic nature of Falk’s comments and also makes no effort to explain to readers why “the US – which has also expressed concerns about Mr Falk’s alleged bias – called for his removal from the post”.

Why the BBC seems to feel the need to play down Falk’s long history of anti-Israel campaigning, antisemitic remarks, adherence to conspiracy theories and general offensiveness is one question. How the BBC thinks it can meet its required standards of accuracy and impartiality by unquestioningly repeating and promoting the opinions of a man it knows full well to be far removed from both of those criteria is a yet more pressing question which needs to be asked more than ever at this time.

Jun 9 2013

BBC self-censors on gay rights in Middle East

On June 7^th 2013 Tel Aviv’s annual Gay Pride Week – now in its fifteenth year – culminated in a festival attended by over 100,000 participants who were addressed by the city’s mayor and representatives from five political parties among others.

Picture: Jerusalem Post, Ziv Shemesh

The BBC ignored the event completely, with no reporting on the Middle East page of its website or in the ‘In Pictures’ features for that day or that week.

One brief reference to the event was, however, to be found at the bottom of a strangely headlined article concerning the arrest of suspects in the investigation into the shooting at the Bar Noar (not “Bar Noah” as stated in the BBC article) LGBT youth club in 2009 which – contrary to the headline’s implication – appears at this stage not to have been motivated by anti-gay sentiment on the part of the perpetrators.

“The arrests came on the eve of the annual pride parade in Tel Aviv, which has one of the largest gay communities in the Middle East.”

The writer of this article does not attempt to explain to its readers exactly how he or she reached the conclusion that a city of 410,000 people – or 3.2 million if one includes the entire Tel Aviv metropolitan area – has “one of the largest gay communities” in comparison with cities such as Tehran (12.2 million), Cairo (9.2 million) or Riyadh (4.7 million). But it is actually highly unlikely that the BBC writer would be able to accurately quantify the LGBT communities in any of those – or other – cities in the Middle East for the simple reason that in the vast majority of them, same-sex relationships are illegal and any gay communities are forced to remain under the radar.

Zebra crossings painted in rainbow colors

Tel Aviv municipality repainted some zebra crossings in rainbow colours. Photo: Ministry of Tourism

Of course the BBC writer should have stated that Tel Aviv is the only city in the Middle East to hold a Gay Pride event at all, that Israel is the only country in the Middle East which affords legal protection and rights to its LGBT population and the only country in the region in which openly gay people serve in the military.

Using the BBC’s own definition of the Middle East (according to the twenty countries given profiles on its website’s Middle East page), we see that homosexuality is still punishable by death in six Middle Eastern countries and by fine and/or imprisonment in ten additional ones. In Egypt, Lebanon and the PA controlled territories the situation is ambiguous, with homosexuality not specifically outlawed, but often punished under different laws relating, for example, to “morality”. In Iraq and Jordan homosexuality is not illegal, but the state does not defend gay rights and vigilante killings occur. In Israel homosexuality was decriminalized in 1988 – although the law had not been enforced since 1963.

Rather than hiding behind the euphemism of “one of the largest gay communities in the Middle East” the BBC should be accurately informing its audiences about the real situation facing LGBT communities in that region. However, the pernicious combination of self-imposed political correctness – together with an institutional lack of impartiality regarding Israel – instead results in the BBC continuing to self-censor on the one hand, whilst insidiously using the tragic case of a criminal shooting in a gay youth club to once again foster the theme of Israel as an intolerant society on the other.

Jun 6 2013

Two headlines in two hours for BBC report on Quneitra

A report published on the Middle East page of the BBC News website at 09:38 GMT on June 6^th 2013 claimed in its opening sentence:

“Syrian rebels have taken over a UN-run border crossing in the Golan Heights after heavy clashes with regime forces.”

Later, the report went on to say:

“Israeli army radio and Syrian activists reported that clashes were continuing on Thursday in the Golan Heights, close to the ceasefire line with Israel, which captured part of the plateau in 1967 and later annexed it in a move that has not been recognised by the international community.

“The rebels have seized the crossing near the old city of Quneitra in the occupied Golan Heights,” Rami Abdelrahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters news agency.

Explosions and heavy shelling could be heard in the area.

“The sounds of shelling are very loud,” Raya Fakhradin, who lives in nearby Majdal-Shams, told the BBC.

“Everybody is scared. People have been stocking up on food supplies so that they don’t need to leave their homes.”

Majdal Shams is about 19 kms from Quneitra. Significantly more “nearby” are the kibbutzim Ortal, Ein Zivan and Merom Golan.

The article continued:

“Israel has not said which opposition group has taken over the Quneitra border crossing, and there has been no comment from the UN peacekeeping force which normally operates it and patrols the demilitarised zone.

Israeli officials have increasingly voiced fears the civil war in Syria could spill over their borders: They are worried the Golan Heights could be used to launch attacks against Israel, due to the number of Islamist extremists among the rebel forces.”

In fact, the situation was far from as clear as this BBC report claimed. Whilst a rebel militia apparently did gain control of the area early on Thursday morning, reports published by Ynet and the Jerusalem Post even before the BBC article was posted suggested that Syrian government forces had retaken the area within a relatively short time. Some of the shelling by Assad’s forces was shown in video footage posted on Youtube by a rebel militia and the fighting is apparently still ongoing, with reports of injured UN observers and an Austrian statement of intent to withdraw its forces from UNDOF.

Less than two hours after the publication of the original article, at 11:16 GMT and using the same URL, the headline was changed to read “Syria conflict: Army ‘retakes Golan Heights crossing‘“.

The relevant parts of the body of the report also underwent considerable change and a side box of analysis by the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus was added in which – not for the first time – it was stated that:

”On occasion, Israeli positions have come under fire and the Israeli army has fired back.”

As we have previously noted here, the use of the word “positions” will suggest to most readers that exclusively military installations have come under fire from Syria. As anyone following developments closely knows, that is patently not the case, with mortar shells having fallen in or near civilian communities and the BBC having frequently failed to report those incidents.

Also not mentioned by the BBC in this report was a related incident which took place the same morning (Thursday) at the Rifka Ziv hospital in Tsfat (Safed) in which the emergency and trauma rooms had to be evacuated when staff discovered a live grenade on the person of an unconscious Syrian wounded in the fighting in Quneitra who had been brought to the hospital for treatment.

Quneitra

BBC Watch

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