Dec 14 2012

Face value: the BBC and Palestinian NGOs

On December 12th 2012 the BBC News website’s Middle East section featured a report entitled “Israeli military raids offices of Palestinian NGOs“.

The article quotes an IDF spokesperson:

“The Israeli military said the NGOs were linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel considers a terrorist group.

“Soldiers searched several offices in Ramallah which were affiliated with the Popular Front organisation,” a spokeswoman told the AFP news agency.

“We don’t know that they were Popular Front offices, but they were affiliated with a terror organisation.” “

Israel, however, is not the only country which classifies the PFLP as a terrorist organization: so do the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Nablus (---), 08/12/2012.- Palestinian supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) carry Palestine National flags and the party flag during a rally to mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the PFLP in the West Bank City of Nablus 08 December 2012.

A rally to mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the PFLP in Nablus (Schem) December 8th 2012.

The report then goes on to offer several Palestinian viewpoints:

“Addameer said the raids were an “attempt to cripple solidarity with the prisoners’ movement”, while the Palestinian NGO Network connected them to the decision by the Palestinians to seek UN non-member observer state status at the UN, which Israel had strongly opposed.

Nour Odeh, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, told AFP that the raids were part of an Israeli policy of “pursuing human rights activists and defenders of the law who expose… systematic and continued Israeli violations”.”

The statement by the PA spokeswoman is interesting if only due to the fact that it is difficult to imagine that such a raid could have taken place in Ramallah without the prior knowledge of the PA security forces.

Of course the term “human rights activists” has – tragically – become something of an ‘invisibility cloak’ for all manner of anti-Israel political activism and these three NGOs are just some of many who exploit that title, as even a superficial look at them shows.

Addameer aspires to have prisoners in Israeli jails categorized as ‘political prisoners’ – even if their imprisonment is the result of involvement in terrorism. Its ‘solidarity campaigns’ include support for members of proscribed terror organisations and the 2011 initiative to which it lent its voice was begun by PFLP prisoners.

Yousef Habash

Addameer’s Board of Directors includes Yousef Habash – reportedly the nephew of the PFLP’s founder George Habash. He has also represented PNGO (the Palestinian NGO Network) and the Health Work Committees. Until 2007 at least, he was a member of the steering committee of the ‘Palestinian Grassroots Anti Apartheid Wall Campaign’.

Addameer’s Chairperson, Abdullatif Ghaith, was described by the Palestinian NGO ‘Miftah’ in 2004 as representing the PFLP at a sit-in organized by Azmi Bishara.

Sumoud Sa’adat

Addameer’s Director, Sahar Francis, was formerly also a board member of ‘Defence of Children International – Palestine’: a title also formerly held by Al Haq’s Shawan Jabarin who was denied entry by Jordan in 2003 due to PFLP ties.

Addameer’s Documentation Officer is Sumoud Sa’adat – daughter of the PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat. Here she is featured on the PFLP website.

The Director of the Cultural Committee of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committeesis Myassar Atyani – described by the PFLP as a “leader” of that terror organization when she was arrested and imprisoned for one month in 2009. Ms Atyani’s Facebook wall would suggest that her ties to the PFLP still stand.

The PFLP’s website offers links in its sidebar to (among others) Addameer, Health Work Committees West Bank, Defence of Children International -Palestine and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

Some thorough investigative reporting on the part of the BBC into the subject of Palestinian NGOs would do much to advance its audience’s (and its own) understanding of the fact that in the Middle East, “human rights defenders” are not always all they claim to be.

Nov 10 2012

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

On the evening of Saturday, November 10^th 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)

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.

Oct 23 2012

BBC ignores Gaza border attack

Yesterday we reported on attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians in the vicinity of the border with the Gaza Strip which the BBC chose to report by headlining the IDF response to those attacks.

This morning, an IDF officer was critically wounded in another attack on a routine patrol near the border fence in the area near Kissufim.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

As yet, there has been no response from the IDF.

There has also been no mention of the attack on the Middle East page of the BBC News website.

Could there be a connection between those two facts?

Oct 19 2012

BBC makeover: from Terrorist to Celeb

The BBC’s Jerusalem Bureau evidently decided that it would be appropriate to do a special feature on the anniversary of the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1027 convicted Palestinian terrorists.

Thus, on the BBC website we see side by side tabs under the heading “Shalit-prisoners exchange: One year on” leading to an article on Shalit (by Yolande Knell) and an interview with a convicted PFLP terrorist by the BBC’s Gaza correspondent, Jon Donnison.

Even before reading Donnison’s interview, the very layout says “equivalence”.

Donnison’s superficial touchy-feely whitewash concentrates on ‘humanising’ a man convicted – according to his own unrepentant admittance – of terrorist activities.

“An Israeli court gave him two life sentences after he was convicted of “intentionally causing death” and working for an “illegal and unrecognised organisation”.

I ask Al Far if all this is true.

“Yes,” he says quickly. “I planned and co-ordinated attacks against Israeli targets.”

I ask him if he regrets what he did. This time there is more of a pause.

“No,” he eventually says.”

Donnison, however, refrains from asking any difficult questions which might humanise those “Israeli targets”: they have no names, ages, family – and certainly, unlike Al Far, no freedom. They are not even spoken of as human beings.

Donnison’s next paragraph lays bare the underlying aim of his article: that same moral equivalence between a terrorist and a conscript in a regular army, which the webpage layout already hinted at.

“Al Far says he saw himself as a soldier in a war, no different from Gilad Shalit – captured by Hamas militants in 2006 – or any other soldier in the Israeli army. Most Palestinians would agree with him.”

Scrupulously avoiding informing his readers of the fact that Al Far’s organization is a proscribed terrorist group responsible for numerous aircraft hijackings, bombings and the deaths of many civilians, Donnison also refrains from detailing the PFLP’s ideology which rejects the two-state solution, the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and promotes the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees. By doing so, Donnison can present Al Far’s basic excuse of “the occupation made me do it” for his involvement in terrorism as though that were a justification and gloss over the rather bizarre statement (unchallenged by Donnison) which actually blames Israelis for terrorism against themselves:

“…but if the Israelis pressured me to carry a gun again then I would.”

Donnison refers – albeit briefly – to the subject of the PA’s financing of former (and current) convicted prisoners:

“Al Far says, as a former prisoner, he is treated with respect. He tells me the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank pays him a monthly salary to support him. He does not want to say how much, calling it only a “normal amount”. “

However, he fails to expand on the financial details (those released in the Shalit deal were allocated $5 million in PA-donated ‘release grants’ alone), the controversy surrounding the PA’s use of funds donated by the international community to pay monthly stipends to current and former convicted terrorists or the obvious connection between the PA’s preferential treatment of convicted terrorists and the encouragement of future acts of terrorism.

A good investigative journalist could have done important work informing his or her readers on the real stories behind the prisoner exchange. Donnison and his editors chose not to step up to the mark.

Celebrations marking the first anniversary of the prisoner exchange deal, Gaza, 18.10.2012

Next, Donnison turns to quoting the politicised NGO Addameer - which refers to the Israeli army as “Israeli Occupying Forces” and supports BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel.

“Israel always said it feared many militants would return to violence.” […….]

“But figures from the Palestinian prisoners rights organisation Addameer show only eight of the more than 500 detainees who were released to the West Bank or East Jerusalem are currently back in Israeli jails.”

Contrary to Addameer’s claims, the Israeli defence establishment reports a somewhat less rosy picture:

“The [exchange]deal’s first round saw the release of 477 security prisoners, 209 of whom were deported to the Gaza Strip. According to the data, which was released by Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday, many of the Gaza deportees have joined Hamas’ leadership, while others are actively developing weapons and firing rockets on Israel. Furthermore, some are recruiting new terror cells in the West Bank, including one Hebron cell that planted a bomb in Jerusalem and planned to kidnap an IDF soldier.”

“The prisoners who were deported to the West Bank have not abstained from hostile activity, either; over the past year Israel has arrested 40 Palestinians in the territories on suspicion of rioting, throwing Molotov cocktails, transferring funds for terrorist acts and other violations. Twenty-four of them – including two women – are still under arrest. One has been tried and incarcerated.”

Donnison continues to insult his readers’ intelligence with an utterly ridiculous quote – this time from a PA official:

“A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry for Detainees, Amr Nasser, told the BBC such a low level of re-arrests reflected that some of those released as part of the deal should never have been in jail for so long in the first place and were never really a threat.”

More seriously, he winds up by going down the very suspect route of blowing wind into the sails of the ‘narrative’ adopted in some Palestinian circles, according to which terrorists are to be regarded as political prisoners.

“Addameer say there are around 4,600 Palestinian “political prisoners” currently held in Israeli jails. Israel has convicted many of them of acts of violence and terrorism.”

As we are aware, the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines have plenty to say on the subject of undesirable “value judgements” resulting from the use of the word ‘terrorist’, which – it is claimed – may be perceived as compromising the BBC’s impartiality.

“The value judgements frequently implicit in the use of the words “terrorist” or “terrorist group” can create inconsistency in their use or, to audiences, raise doubts about our impartiality.”

“We must be careful not to give the impression that we have come to some kind of implicit - and unwarranted – value judgement. ”

So my questions to the BBC are these:

Does the BBC really believe that trying to create an impression of moral equivalence between a self-confessed convicted terrorist and a kidnapped conscript from a regular army does not represent a value judgement?

Can the BBC look its audience straight in the eye and say that the publication of a romanticised puff-piece interview with a convicted terrorist (which studiously avoids presenting full background information or asking any difficult questions and uses quotations containing unverified information from politically motivated bodies working for the same aims as the convicted terrorist himself) should not “raise doubts” regarding its impartiality?