Tag Archives: Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Mar 14 2013

Omission of information in BBC report on Al Fawar incident

An article appearing on the Middle East page of the BBC News website on March 13th entitled “Funeral held for Palestinian shot by Israeli soldiers” omits information relevant to the context of the incident in which its subject, Mahmoud Titi, was killed. 

Mahmoud Titi

As is so often the case with BBC articles, the report begins with the last chronological event – Titi’s funeral.

“The funeral of a Palestinian man shot dead by Israeli soldiers has taken place in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Titi, 22, was killed during clashes in a refugee camp near Hebron on Tuesday, after soldiers entered the camp to make arrests.”

Only in the fifth paragraph do readers begin to get some idea of the circumstances surrounding Titi’s death.

“The Israeli military said its soldiers entered the al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, after Palestinians threw a petrol bomb onto a road towards Israeli cars. Clashes then broke out, during which Mr Titi was killed, it added.

The military confirmed that live ammunition was used during the operation. Two other Palestinians were injured during the incident.”

The first sentence does not make sufficiently clear the fact that the soldiers who entered al Fawar did so whilst in pursuit of the throwers of petrol bombs at Israeli vehicles travelling on Route 60 near Beit Hagi at around 8:30 pm on March 12th 2013. 

The neutral choice of phrasing “clashes broke out” disguises the fact that the soldiers were attacked with rocks and petrol bombs in an incident initiated by rioters in the camp. The BBC report fails to mention that the vehicle in which the soldiers were travelling got stuck and that the rioters pelted it with rocks, smashing its bullet-proof windows and causing the soldiers to assess that their lives were in immediate danger. Only then was live ammunition used. 

Video footage uploaded to Youtube, apparently filmed by the rioters themselves, shows the incident.

The soldiers were evacuated by back-up. 

The BBC article also fails to mention that Mahmoud Titi (described as being between 22 and 25 years old in different reports) was, according to Palestinian sources, a known Hamas operative who had spent three years in prison in Israel and had been released from a Palestinian Authority prison just a few days before his death following his arrest by the PA security forces several weeks ago.  

The article also makes no mention of the statements made by Palestinian terror organisations in relation to Mahmoud Titi’s death. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad statement said that:

“The blood of the shahid Mahmoud Titi was not shed in vain. It will continue the Palestinian resistance and bring about the wished-for intifada and resistance to the occupation, which have no replacement. The Palestinian people in the [West] Bank must continue the clashes with the Israeli enemy.

Conflict with the Zionist occupation is the only option in order to gain our rights.”

The Hamas statement described Titi as:

“..a martyr who is a role model to all the Hamas youth to act against the occupation with the aim of releasing the Palestinian prisoners.”

 The BBC report states that:

“The BBC’s Jon Donnison in Jerusalem says there has been an increase in tension in the West Bank in recent weeks, with frequent clashes between Israeli soldiers and protesters angry at treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”

Of course the BBC has failed to report the majority of the rioting and terrorist incidents which have led to a significant rise in the violence. The month of February saw a 70% rise in the number of terror attacks in comparison with the preceding month, with 139 incidents recorded and three Israelis injured. 

However, Donnison’s assertion that the rise in violence can be attributed to anger “at treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails” ignores both the organized political campaign behind those riots and the recent increased efforts by Hamas to establish terrorist cells in Palestinian Authority controlled areas.

The omission of crucial information results in a superficial presentation of this incident which distorts audience understanding of events and compromises the BBC’s obligations to both accuracy and impartiality. 

Feb 20 2013

Politicised BBC report on hunger strikers omits crucial information

On February 18th 2013 the BBC published an article in the Middle East section of its website entitled “Protest in West Bank for Palestinian hunger strikers“. 

Hunger strikers

Like many other media organisations, the BBC made much of the numerous uninformed statements on the subject coming from abroad.

“The Middle East Quartet (UN, US, EU and Russia) has recently issued warnings about the condition of the strikers.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was “following with concern” the deteriorating health of four Palestinian hunger strikers.”

And:

“On Saturday the EU called on Israel to “[fully respect] international human rights obligations towards all Palestinian detainees and prisoners”.

Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair expressed concern about “the deteriorating health condition of the four prisoners”.

Earlier in the week, the UN expressed concern for the hunger strikers and called on Israel to end its practice of administrative detention.”

The BBC article also includes comments from Palestinian sources.

“Mukid Abu Atwan, the Director General of Palestinian Prisoners’ Ministry, told the BBC that the hunger strikers should be released immediately.

“We want to tell Israelis and the rest of the world that we won’t accept for Palestinian prisoners to come out of jail in coffins. They deserve to be free and live a dignified life,” he said.

The hunger strikers and their supporters say they are being unfairly held.”

What this BBC article fails to do, however, is to inform its readers of who the striking prisoners actually are and why they are in prison in the first place. The article states:

“One, Samer Issawi, has been on an intermittent protest for 200 days and is said to be in a critical condition.

The three other hunger strikers are Tariq Qaadan, Jafar Ezzedine and Ayman Sharawna.”

It is pointed out later in the article that Issawi and Sharawna were among the 1,027 Palestinian prisoners released as part of the Shalit deal in October 2011, but no information is given regarding the reasons for their imprisonment. 

Our colleagues at CAMERA have more details on Samer Issawi: 

“According to the Israel Prison Service, Samer Issawi of Issawiyeh, Jerusalem was arrested in April 2002 and sentenced to 26 years for attempted murder, belonging to an unrecognized (terror) organization, military training, and possession of weapons, arms and explosive materials.”

“It is important to point out the grave terrorism offences of which Al-Issawi was convicted, including firing a gun at a civilian vehicle in October 2001, indiscriminately firing an AK47 assault rifle at civilian buses, and manufacturing and distributing pipe bombs used in attacks on Israeli civilians.”

Issawi was rearrested in July 2012 due to violations of the terms of his release. Whilst the BBC includes in its article brief mentions of some of the various protests in support of Issawi, it notably refrains from mentioning the violent events initiated by Issawi’s family during a court hearing last December, the violent demonstration which took place three days before the article was published outside the Ofer prison or the involvement of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in some of those demonstrations, as can be noted from observation of the flags bearing Issawi’s image below.

Demonstration in Abu Dis

Ayman Sharawna, from Dura near Hebron, was also released under the Shalit deal in October 2011, by which time he had served ten years of a 38 year sentence for attempted murder and bomb-making. Sharawna is a member of the Hebron branch of Hamas and was rearrested on January 31st 2012 due to violating of the terms of his release by returning to Hamas activities. Shawarna was originally apprehended on May 10th 2002 when he and another terrorist planted an explosive device near a branch of Bank HaPoalim on HaAtzmaout Street in Be’er Sheva. The device malfunctioned, but despite that eighteen people were injured in the attack. Sharawna and his accomplice were caught fleeing the scene by members of the public and he was also found to have taken part in prior shooting attacks during the second Intifada. 

Tariq Qaadan and Jafar Ezzedine are both from Arabe near Jenin and both are senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives.

Qaadan has been arrested several times in the past, including in 2002 and 2004. In March 2011 Qaadan was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in connection with investigations into the terror attack in Jerusalem in which British national Mary Jean Gardner was killed and over 50 people injured.

 Jafar Ezzedine has also been arrested in the past and took part in a previous hunger strike organized by Palestinian prisoners in May 2012. Earlier this month, Ezzedine took his case to the High Court of Justice, which rejected his appeal , clarifying that a hunger strike cannot be considered a factor in decisions relating to the length of administrative detention. 

The BBC’s portrayal of Palestinian prisoners who have chosen to go on hunger strike as victims, and its failure to inform audiences of the true nature of their past crimes and their activities with terror organisations, does not only breach BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality.

The hunger strikes themselves – and the massive public relations campaign which surrounds them – are organised political acts designed to rally outside pressure on Israel with the aim of securing the release of people involved in terrorist activities. Neither the BBC nor the numerous foreign dignitaries expressing an opinion on the subject will, of course, have to live with the consequences of the success of that campaign. That task will be left to the Israeli public, some members of which have already fallen victim to acts perpetrated by these men.

It is highly inappropriate for the BBC to be lending its voice and its reputation to such a political public relations campaign by producing one-sided reports such as this one which hide the true issues from BBC audiences. 

Nov 10 2012

More ‘last-first’ BBC reporting from southern Israel and the Gaza Strip

On the evening of Saturday, November 10th 2012, an anti-tank missile was fired from the Gaza Strip at IDF soldiers from the Givati Brigade conducting a routine patrol in a ‘David’ jeep on the Israeli side of the border, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz. 

Four soldiers were wounded: one sustained serious head injuries, one was moderately to seriously wounded, and two others sustained moderate injuries. All four soldiers have been evacuated to hospital. 

Israeli soldiers wounded in an anti-tank missile attack on the Gaza border are wheeled into Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on November 10, 2012. (photo credit: Dudu Greenspan/Flash90)

Israeli soldiers wounded in an anti-tank missile attack on the Gaza border are wheeled into Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on November 10, 2012. (photo credit: Dudu Greenspan/Flash90)

The jeep in which the soldiers were travelling is designed to protect its crew against light gun fire, stones or Molotov cocktails. Obviously, it is not equipped to withstand an anti-tank missile. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it had fired two Kornet missiles at the patrol. However, it is thought that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad may actually be responsible. The Russian-made laser-guided Kornet anti-tank missile – smuggled into the Gaza Strip via Syria or Iran – has been known to be available in there since December 2010 and was used by Hamas in the attack on an Israeli school bus in April 2011.

After the missile attack on the jeep, the IDF responded with tank fire at the suspected launching site in a location east of the Gaza City neighbourhoods of Zeitun and Sajaiya. A heavy exchange of fire followed. Palestinian news agencies reported four people dead and some thirty wounded.

In addition, missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli civilian communities in the surrounding region and the residents are currently under instructions to stay within 15 seconds’ reach of shelters. Longer range missiles were also fired at Ashdod, for which the PIJ claimed responsibility. At the time of writing, the rocket fire continues with eight rockets in the past hour and school on Sunday has been cancelled.

The BBC report on the evening’s events is headlined: “Gaza: Palestinians killed and Israeli soldiers injured”, despite the fact that the soldiers were in Israel. 

As usual, the BBC reports the first events last:

“Four Palestinians have been killed and more than 20 injured after Israelis fired into the Gaza Strip following an attack on an army patrol jeep which injured four Israeli soldiers.”

The report includes the usual attempt by Jon Donnison to downplay the responsibility of terror groups in Gaza for the escalation of violence:

“Flare-ups in violence in and around Gaza are frequent, says the BBC’s Jon Donnison in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Periods of calm rarely last for long, our correspondent says.”

Significantly, the report fails to relate to the use by terrorists of built-up residential areas as launching sites for military-grade weapons and the resulting danger to civilians in the area and even goes on to mislead readers by quoting Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum as stating:

“Targeting civilians is a dangerous escalation that cannot be tolerated.”

No mention is made in the report of the targeting of Israeli civilians by rocket-firing squads in the Gaza Strip.  Whilst this report was being written, the rocket tally this evening has risen to eleven. 

Update:

The BBC’s report has been (apparently hastily) updated: 

“Five Palestinians have been killed and more than 20 injured in a series of clashes close to the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Four died when Israel open fired [sic] after a missile attack on an army patrol jeep which injured four Israeli soldiers.

Hamas officials said the casualties were civilians at a funeral in the Shijaia neighbourhood near Gaza City.

In a later incident, Islamic Jihad said one of its members was killed by an Israeli air strike.

Israel said it launched the attack, late on Saturday evening, after more rockets were fired from Gaza.

“A short while ago, the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) targeted a rocket-launching squad in the northern Gaza Strip moments after it fired rockets towards southern Israel. A direct hit was confirmed,” an Israeli military statement said.

“Over the past few hours, 25 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel,” the statement added.”

At around 8:50 a.m. local time on Sunday morning the Israeli police stated that some 23 rockets had hit southern Israel since midnight alone and more have been reported since then. Over 30 missiles were also fired on Saturday. Four people  have been wounded in two separate rocket attacks. 

As reported by the BBC, during the night the IDF struck a rocket launching squad, with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claiming that one of its members had been killed (named as Mohammed Saeed Shkoukani, aged 20, by some Palestinian sources). The IDF also reported a direct hit on a rocket storage facility. 

Nov 5 2012

BBC headline promotes a lie

A perusal of the BBC News website’s Middle East page turned up a link to a programme called ‘Fast Track’ from July 31st 2012 with the caption “Are tourists being forced to reveal their personal emails to security on arrival in Israel?”.

Clicking on the link leads to a report by Keith Wallace which was apparently broadcast on BBC television news and is headlined with the statement: “Israeli security ‘read’ tourists’ private emails”. 

The blurb asks “How would you feel if when you arrived at your holiday destination, security staff demanded to read your personal emails and look at your Facebook account?” and continues:

“Israel’s attorney general has been asked to look into claims that security officials have been doing just that – threatening to refuse entry to the country unless such private information is divulged by some tourists.”

However, the film report itself tells a somewhat different story – especially if one fills in the blanks left by Wallace. 

The subject of the film is American architect Najwa Doughman, aged 25, who on May 26th 2012 arrived at Ben Gurion airport for her third visit to Israel, together with a friend. In his introduction, Wallace informs viewers that almost three million people visited Israel last year, adding “other people go there for very different reasons”, before showing footage of the April 2012 ‘flytilla’ as an illustration of the political activists and ‘resistance-chic’ genre of tourism which also arrives at the airport. 

Wallace claims that stopping groups of political activists should be “straightforward enough” but then puts forward the assertion that “methods used to security check individuals at Ben Gurion airport have overstepped the mark”.  

Wallace does make it clear that Ms Doughman had “written about the 2008 Israeli assaults on Gaza for her university newspaper” and that she had worked at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon in 2010, suggesting that this might prompt “extra questions” at the airport. 

In fact, Najwa Doughman (whose article on Gaza – complete with Nazi analogy – can be read here) was president of the University of Virginia branch of ‘Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine’; an organization which supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, employs ‘apartheid’ rhetoric against Israel and promotes the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees together with their ‘repatriation’ to their previous homes or those of their ancestors, along with the expulsion of all Jews from what it terms ‘Arab’ areas. Ms Doughman’s stay in Lebanon – according to her Linkedin profile – lasted 13 months, ending in January 2011. 

In Wallace’s interview with Doughman she recounts how she was asked by a member of the security staff at the airport to open her e-mail account (which she presumably agreed to do) and that her e-mails were searched and read. Doughman says that the security officer told her to “tell your friends that we don’t only Google your names; we search your e-mails too”.

However, the account of the same story which Najwa Doughman wrote previously for the ‘Mondoweiss‘ site puts a somewhat different light upon the subject. 

In that article, Doughman wrote:

“Little did I know that my father’s Arab name would make me guilty until proven innocent.”

However, the fact that this was her third visit to Israel indicates that her insinuations of racism are far from justified.

Doughman went on to write:

“I typed in my username and password in complete disbelief. She [the security officer] began her invasive search: “Israel,” “Palestine,” “West Bank,” “International Solidarity Movement.” “

“The security officer opened an email from a friend living in Jerusalem who had advised me to remove myself from internet searches. “They are heavy on googling names at the airport recently,” he had written. “See if you can remove yourselves, not crucial but helpful.” “

Next, Wallace goes on to interview Hagai Elad of ACRI  - after giving an anodyne description of that organization quoted from its own blurb –  and after that he conducts an interview with Fred Schlomka of ‘Green Olive Tours‘ who claims to have heard similar stories to that of Ms Doughman from his clients. 

What Wallace does not tell his viewers is that Fred Schlomka was operations manager for ICAHD between 2001 and 2003, is a former member of its board and has written a series of ‘reports‘ for the organization. Wallace does also not inform his readers of the political nature of the congenial, juggling Mr Schlomka’s ‘tour company’, including the fact that for $695 he will arrange a three-day trip to Beit Ummar hosted by an ISM volunteer and a man who has spent time in an Israeli prison due to his activity with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  

Wallace ends the report by showing footage of the terror attack in Bulgaria as an illustration of why security is necessary in Israel and by interviewing an expert on aviation security who explains very clearly why Najwa Doughman would have raised suspicions at the airport. He even admits that ACRI is pursuing only three cases of this type, which – considering that almost three million tourists visited Israel last year – clearly indicates that only a very small minority of visitors with specific intentions which do not include normal tourist activities have any reason to believe that they may be asked to open their e-mail account as part of security measures. 

Clearly, the assertion in the report’s headline – “Israeli security ‘read’ tourists’ private emails” – is not only based entirely on unproven hearsay from Najwa Doughman, but is also inaccurate: genuine tourists to Israel do not have their private e-mails read. 

Clause 3.4.12 of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines states that:

“We should normally identify on-air and online sources of information and significant contributors, and provide their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status.”

Clause 4.4.14 states that:

“We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made.”

In this report, once again, the BBC has failed to make clear the connections of interviewees to politicized NGOs and/or organisations with a specific political agenda before promoting their claims.

It is particularly regrettable that a respected and trusted organization such as the BBC should be taking its lead from anti-Israel sites such as Mondoweiss and regurgitating the type of politically motivated non-stories designed solely to besmirch Israel which one so often finds there.  

Related articles
Oct 17 2012

BBC’s Jon Donnison on Salafists and Hamas

On October 15th an article written by the BBC’s Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison and entitled “Israel seeks to contain Gaza’s Salafi-jihadist threat” appeared on the BBC News website’s Mid-East section. 

The article discusses the recent killing of Hisham Saedni (also spelt Saidani) – aka Abu Walid al Maqdisi – of al Tawhid wal Jihad, together with Ashraf Sabah of the organisation Ansar al Sunnah, by the IDF. 

Donnison does a reasonable job of explaining the Salafist component of the numerous militias active in the Gaza Strip, although he could have given more detail regarding the various different factions and their connections to and collaboration with other groups such as the Iranian-backed Popular Resistance Committees and Hamas itself. 

Gaza militants at press conference - AP - April 3, 2011

A press conference in Gaza, with representatives of various terrorist organisations including Hamas, April 2011

However, the article is let down by the fact that although Donnison is probably correct when he writes that “privately those in power in Gaza and Egypt are unlikely to loose much sleep over his [Saedni's] demise either”, he also creates the impression that Hamas is to be regarded as something of a moderating influence by including the following paragraph.

“It is widely believed that Hamas has no interest in escalating tensions with Israel right now, preferring to consolidate its power and try to profit from its strong ties with the new Islamist leadership in Egypt.”

Donnison does not inform us by whom “it is widely believed”, but the facts certainly call that belief into question. Even when Hamas has not been officially engaged in terror attacks or the firing of rockets itself, it has turned a blind eye to such activities by other groups and largely made no attempt to prevent them. As de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip, it has also done nothing to prevent the flow of arms to various factions within the territory. 

In June 2012, some 80 rockets were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip over a four-day period, with Hamas taking responsibility for the attacks. 

As recently as ten days ago, on October 7th, Israeli forces targeted two other Salafist terrorists – Tala’at Jarbi and Abdullah Maqawi.  On that occasion, Hamas again had no qualms whatsoever about “escalating tensions” and publicly claimed responsibility for joint operations with the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad which included the firing of some 55 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilian communities. 

“Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they targeted the rural district as a response to an Israeli air strike on Sunday night, which struck and seriously injured two members of an al- Qaida-inspired terror cell as they rode on a motorcycle.”

In fact, collaboration between Hamas and its traditional, though smaller, rival the PIJ seems to be blooming at the moment, with some sources reporting the establishment of a “joint operations room” and joint committees, and with shared statements being issued by Hamas’s ‘Izz al Din al Qassam’ and the PIJ’s ‘Al Quds Brigades’. Hamas and the PIJ even released a film clip together (note the logos on the screen) depicting their operations.

As noted recently by The Israel Project:

 ”Recent analysis had suggested that Hamas was distancing itself from Shiite-aligned Gaza factions and aligning with the Sunni countries fighting a proxy war in Syria against Iran. That analysis was never completely sound: Hamas leaders including Mahmoud al-Zahar gathered in Iran in September to coordinate moves against Israel with other groups, while leaders such as Khaled Mashal, who opposed Iranian involvement in Syria have been marginalized. Regardless of whether the analysis was misguided or Hamas has recalibrated, the result is the same. ”

Hamas leaders have also been seen recently attending a series of PIJ events and public rallies in the Gaza Strip. 

Rather than viewing Hamas crack-downs on Salafist groups operating in the Gaza Strip as part of a policy to avoid “escalating tensions” – which is clearly a problematic assumption in light of Hamas’s recent upgrading of its relations with the PIJ and its self-publicised participation in attacks on Israeli civilians – it is useful to examine them in the context of internal politics within the Gaza Strip. 

In September of this year, Abu Abdullah of the Mujahedeen Shura Council told AFP:

 ”What hurts us is that people who call themselves Muslims in the internal security forces are pointing the dagger at the chest of the mujahedeen and won’t stop their campaign against them.” 

Following the killing of Abu Walid al Maqdasi (Hisham Saedni), the Salafist group known as Masada al Mujahideen issued a statement blaming Hamas for his death. 

“In the statement, Masada al Mujahideen said that Hamas was responsible for the death of al Maqdisi and that Hamas “has become the loyal agent and a quicker executor than its predecessors of the orders of the occupation.” The group threatened to make Hamas pay “dearly for these foolish, heinous crimes, but at the time we find suitable, whether it’s sooner or later, and we will do it.” “

In the addendum to his recent book “Getting to Know Hamas“, Israeli author and journalist Shlomi Eldar wrote the following:

“But the Hamas movement has not yet come to appreciate that the Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and other rebellious organisations, which hold profuse amounts of weapons and rockets, act in exactly the same way in which Hamas succeeded in embarrassing, entangling and vanquishing – by means of its military arm – Yasser Arafat and his successor Abu Mazen; driving a wedge between them and the Israelis and demolishing the Oslo Accords, the existence of which they saw as a political death sentence for their movement.

Arafat did not act against members of Hamas with real determination, and was rightly accused of playing a double game, and Abu Mazen too did nothing when a honey trap was set for him which brought about the dismissal of his movement and his government from the Gaza Strip. Both Yasser Arafat and Abu Mazen were always fearful of the things which would be said about them on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank if they fought against those who presented themselves as Jihadist fighters. Arafat ended his life in the Muqata, in squalor, as a paper General living on past memories; Abu Mazen and the heads of the Palestinian Security Services repented their failures, after they were driven from Gaza in disgrace. “

Eldar goes on to ask whether Hamas will be able to learn from the lessons of its own methods in order to hold on to power and whether it will engage in the necessary disarming of rival factions. His final conclusion is that perhaps that is one step too far for Hamas.

The latest collaboration between Hamas and such a prominent past rival as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, coupled with the recent renewal of overtures in the direction of Hizballah and Iran, as well as the selective crack-downs on Salafists, may well represent an attempt to take an alternative approach to the dilemma raised by Eldar.

Rather than wanting to avoid “escalating tensions”, as Jon Donnison claims, Hamas’s aim is to remain the master of decisions as to when and how tensions will escalate, according to its own agenda and interests. Those interests are not always directly connected to Israel and “tensions” may sometimes serve Hamas’s internal – as well as external – agenda. The fact that the Salafists which Hamas once welcomed as partners in the ‘resistance’ now pose a challenge to its hold on power does not turn Hamas into olive branch-waving peaceniks.  

The strange ability of some Westerners to easily identify Al Qaeda-related groups as terrorists, whilst at the same time being reluctant to see organisations of differing stripes  (such as Hamas and Hizballah) in the same light will continue to compromise coverage and analysis of the Middle East. 

Related articles
Oct 16 2012

BBC’s Jon Donnison on football and politics.

h/t Jason

The BBC’s Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison took to the subject of football on October 7th. 

Depicting the saga which began with the proposed attendance of Gilad Shalit at the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, Donnison writes: 

“Israeli officials put in a request to Barcelona FC, asking whether Mr Shalit could attend the game at the Camp Nou stadium.

The club said yes.

But when the news hit the media, some Palestinian groups called for Barcelona to withdraw their invitation and threatened a boycott.

Hamas officials in Gaza were quoted as saying Barcelona games would no longer be broadcast on television in the Palestinian coastal territory, without adding how they would go about stopping this from happening in practice.

Barcelona FC realised they had opened something of a can of worms.

Club officials quickly announced that it had also invited three Palestinian representatives to the game, including a Palestinian footballer who spent three years detained in an Israeli jail without ever being formally charged.”

According to the website of Barcelona FC, however, the initiative to invite three Palestinian representatives came from a different source: 

“ In the same manner as Mr. Shalit’s request was accepted, the Club has also accepted the Palestinian embassy’s request to extend three invitations to three Palestinian delegates. Musa Amer Odeh, Palestinian Authority ambassador; Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Football Union, and the Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Al Sarsak will also watch the Clásico at the Camp Nou. ”

So in fact, invitee Musa Amer Odeh appears to have invited himself and two carefully selected others to the match.

 Mr. Odeh (who apparently subscribes to some interesting versions of history) appears to be a fairly frequent visitor to the city of Barcelona, having been there only a few weeks previously in order to attend a welcoming event for the latest ship attempting to breach the naval blockade preventing the transport of weapons to the Gaza Strip. 

Donnison continues: 

“Mahmoud Sarsak, who has played for the Palestine national side, was eventually released in July this year after having been on hunger strike – taking only water and vitamins – for three months in protest at his detention.

Israel believes Sarsak is a member of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.”

“Israel believes” is of course merely a variation of the much-used phrase “Israel says” – often employed by journalists who, despite their obligations to present both sides of a story, choose to add weight to one particular ‘narrative’ by presenting the other as subjective. 

In this case, it is not only Israel which “believes” that Mahmoud Sarsak is a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative; the PIJ itself “believes” so too. 

Hence, Sarsak was featured extensively on the Islamic Jihad’s ‘Saraya’ (military wing) website and, at the reception organized by that terror organisation for Sarsak upon his return to the Gaza Strip, Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam  praised him as “one of our noble members”. The picture below shows Sarsak – wearing a PIJ scarf – upon his arrival in Rafah in July 2012. 

Palestinian soccer player Mahmoud Al-Sarsak flashes the victory sign upon his arrival in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip July 10, 2012. Israel released the member of the Palestinian national soccer team on Tuesday after holding him in jail without trial for three years, during which he staged an intermittent four-month hunger strike in protest, Palestinian officials said. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

In fact, Mahmoud Sarsak himself does not deny that he had connections to the PIJ – as his appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court indicates: 

“Following the last judicial review (on August 18, 2011) by Judge Oded Mudrik of the Tel Aviv District Court to approve the extension of Sarsak’s detention for an additional six months, Sarsak appealed to the Supreme Court. His main claim was that much time had elapsed since he was connected to the PIJM and its activities.”

This is not the first time a BBC journalist has attempted to downplay Mahmoud Sarsak’s connections to a terrorist organization. In June 2012 a BBC World Service sports broadcast featured an interview with Sarsak’s father which was promoted on the ‘World Football’ section of the BBC WS website using the following absurd claim: 

“His father tells us how he believes his son’s imprisonment is an effort by Israel to destroy Palestinian football.”

In contrast to his whitewashing of Sarsak’s PIJ connections, Donnison has no commentary to make on the following quote from Sarsak which he chooses to use in his article: 

” “I refuse to sit in the same place with a killer who came on a military tank,” the former prisoner said, referring to Shalit.”

Donnison then writes:

“The two other Palestinians offered tickets by Barcelona were Jibril Rajoub, a leading Fatah figure and head of the Palestinian Football Federation and also the Fatah dominated Palestine Liberation Organisation’s ambassador to Spain, Musa Amer Odeh.

When contacted by the BBC on Thursday, Mr Rajoub confirmed he and Ambassador Odeh would not be following Mahmoud Sarsak’s example and would be attending the game.”

Here again, Jon Donnison is being coy. Jibril Rajoub is of course far more than “a leading Fatah figure” and his CV includes much more than his position as head of the Palestinian Football Federation. 

Rajoub – no stranger to terrorism and the resulting imprisonment himself – is also head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and as recently as May 2012 used that position to volunteer to lead a campaign to have Israel expelled from the International Olympic community, declaring that sport is “one of the methods of resistance” against Israel. As head of the Palestinian Football Federation, Rajoub has campaigned against Israel’s hosting of the UEFA 2013 Under-21 championship in Israel.

In 2011, Rajoub represented the Palestinian Authority at a reception for Palestinian prisoners (many of them convicted terrorists) released under the terms of the Shalit deal, praising both the kidnappers of Gilad Shalit and the newly-released terrorists themselves. 

If Donnison really wishes to inform his readers about the mixture of politics and football in the Middle East, he should at least play the whole 90 minutes and tell the story in its entirety – including the use of the sport as part of the delegitimisation campaign against Israel.  

Related articles
Oct 11 2012

BBC coverage of recent rocket attacks on southern Israel

On Sunday, October 7th 2012, the IDF targeted two terrorists in the Gaza Strip who were in the advanced stages of planning another terror attack against Israelis. 

“In a joint IDF- ISA operation, IAF targeted Tala’at Halil Muhammad Jarbi (b. 1989), a Global Jihad operative from Rafah, and Abdullah Muhammad Hassan Maqawai (b. 1988), a member of the Ashora Council of the Martyrs of Jerusalem, a Gaza-based Global Jihad affiliate. For many years Tala’at was involved in extensive terrorist activity, targeting Israeli civilian and security forces, including rocket firing, weapon manufacturing, and other terrorist activities in the Gaza Strip. He was a senior operative involved in the planning and execution of an attack along the security fence on 18.6.12, during which an Israeli civilian was killed. He had also been planning an complex attack intended to take place along the Sinai border.”

The attack of June 18th 2012 referred to above resulted in the death of Saeed Phashpashe, aged 36 and the father of four, from Haifa. Despite that, the BBC’s report on October 7th referred to Tala’at Jarbi and Abdullah Maqawai as “Gaza militants” and “Palestinian militants”, cast doubts upon Tala’at Jarbi’s involvement in the June attack by using the well-worn phrase “Israel said” and made no mention of the attack in planning, despite quoting extensively from the IDF statement on the subject. 

Early on the morning of Monday October 8th – a holiday in Israel – civilian communities in the south of Israel underwent an intense barrage of some 55 mortar and rocket attacks from Gaza. Despite the deliberate targeting of civilians by two groups –Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – defined as terror organisations by the British government and despite those two terror organisations having put out a joint statement regarding their cooperation in the rocket attacks, the BBC’s report of October 8th still referred to the perpetrators as “militants”.

The writer of the BBC report also appears to have doubts regarding the nature of the organisations to which Tala’at Jarbi and Abdullah Maqawi belonged, as can be seen in a rather curious use of quotation marks: 

“The Israeli military said it had targeted two members of “global jihadist” groups which were suspected of involvement in a cross-border attack from Egypt in June that left one Israeli dead.”

The BBC’s correspondent in Gaza, Jon Donnison, added some rather bizarre interpretations of his own to the article:

“The BBC’s Jon Donnison in Gaza City says it is unusual for Hamas to acknowledge involvement in attacks against Israel.

In the past it has tried to rein in rocket fire from smaller groups.

But Hamas is under pressure to be seen to be resisting Israel’s occupation from those in Gaza who believe the Islamist movement has compromised too much, our correspondent adds.”

Donnison fails to make clear that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and therefore “resisting Israel’s occupation” by firing military hardware at civilian communities in the Negev constitutes a significantly more belligerent approach and an interpretation of the word ‘occupation’ which – according to Hamas doctrines – includes the whole of Israel. 

Donnison is perhaps not aware that a Hamas delegation headed by Mahmoud al Zahar  recently attended the ‘International Islamic Resistance Conference’ held in Iran, visited Hizballah in Lebanon and  took part in rallies organized by the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Donnison’s attempts to portray Hamas as the ‘responsible adult’ are, therefore, misleading at best. 

Mahmoud al Zahar seated front right at PIJ rally in Gaza

Strangely too, Jon Donnison does not yet have appeared to have absorbed the lessons of quoting unverified statements from ‘Palestinian medical sources’: 

“Later, Palestinian medical sources in Gaza told the BBC that an Israeli shell had landed east of Khan Younis, injuring five people, among them several children.”

If readers are scratching their heads at the BBC’s seemingly boundless ability to classify the architects and executors of terror attacks against Israeli civilians as ‘militants’ – even after 55 missile attacks in one morning – a clue to the ‘reasoning’ behind it comes in the form of its guidance for editors: 

“Terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones and care is required in the use of language that carries value judgements.  We try to avoid the use of the term “terrorist” without attribution.”

 ”The word “terrorist” itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding.”

Alternatively, some people may well think that the BBC is actually creating more barriers to its audience’s understanding of the Middle East by downplaying Islamist terror attacks on Israelis and prettying Hamas, in particular as that becomes even more confusing – as recently pointed out by ‘Honest Reporting‘ – when the word ‘terror’ is used by the BBC in certain circumstances.

  

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