May 20 2013

BBC’s Knell inaccurate on naval blockade of Gaza Strip

An article entitled “Gas finds in east Mediterranean may change strategic balance” by Yolande Knell which appeared in the ‘Features & Analysis’ section of the Middle East page of the BBC News website on May 13^th 2013 is on the whole fairly balanced and accurate.

However, towards the end of the article when Knell discusses gas reserves off the coast of the Gaza Strip, we find the following statement:

“Further south down the coastline of the Levant Basin, the Gaza Marine field, 30km off the coast of the Palestinian territory, has long been known about. In 1999, the Palestinian Authority awarded the exploration licence to British Gas.

However the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has prevented further development of the field. The situation became more complicated when the Islamist group, Hamas, took over by force in 2007, ousting its rivals from the Fatah faction. Israel then tightened its border and naval blockade of Gaza.”

Let’s examine the accuracy of that last sentence first of all. The violent Hamas take-over of Gaza took place between June 5^th and 15^th 2007 and the Palestinian Authority – the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people – was forcefully ejected from power. Following that event, both Egypt and Israel largely closed their borders with the Gaza Strip due to the fact that the body charged with joint security arrangements under the terms of the Oslo Accords – the Palestinian Authority – no longer exercised any control over the territory.

Three months later – on September 19^th 2007 – in light of the escalation of terrorist rocket attacks against Israeli civilians originating in the now Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip – the Israeli government declared Gaza to be ‘hostile territory’.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization that has taken control of the Gaza Strip and turned it into hostile territory. This organization engages in hostile activity against the State of Israel and its citizens and bears responsibility for this activity.

In light of the foregoing, it has been decided to adopt the recommendations that have been presented by the security establishment, including the continuation of military and counter-terrorist operations against the terrorist organizations. Additional sanctions will be placed on the Hamas regime in order to restrict the passage of various goods to the Gaza Strip and reduce the supply of fuel and electricity. Restrictions will also be placed on the movement of people to and from the Gaza Strip. The sanctions will be enacted following a legal examination, while taking into account both the humanitarian aspects relevant to the Gaza Strip and the intention to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”

However, Knell’s suggestion that the “naval blockade of Gaza” was “tightened” immediately after the 2007 Hamas coup (as any reasonable reader would understand her phrasing) is incorrect because the naval blockade was not put in place until January 2009.

Under the terms of the Oslo Accords – willingly signed by the representatives of the Palestinian people – Gaza’s coastal waters remained under Israeli responsibility. The agreements divide those waters into three different zones named K,L and M.

“Subject to the provisions of this paragraph, Zones K and M will be closed areas, in which navigation will be restricted to activity of the Israel Navy.”

Zone L was designated for “fishing, recreation and economic activities”, subject to specific provisions, including the following:

“As part of Israel’s responsibilities for safety and security within the three Maritime Activity Zones, Israel Navy vessels may sail throughout these zones, as necessary and without limitations, and may take any measures necessary against vessels suspected of being used for terrorist activities or for smuggling arms, ammunition, drugs, goods, of for any other illegal activity. The Palestinian Police will be notified of such actions, and the ensuing procedures will be coordinated through the MC.” [Emphasis added]

Following the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the November 15th 2005 agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (Agreed documents on movement and access from and to Gaza) made no change to the above provisions.

After the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007, Israel did introduce maritime zones off the coast of the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to reduce arms smuggling into the territory – for example see the Notice to Mariners No. 6/2008 of August 13^th 2008 – but that is not the same thing as a naval blockade (which has a specific legal definition) and hence Knell’s claim of a 2007 tightening of “the naval blockade” is inaccurate.

Is Knell’s wider claim that “the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has prevented further development of the [gas] field” an accurate representation of the situation? Well obviously, had the Palestinians chosen to develop the economy of Gaza Strip after Israel’s 2005 disengagement and had a terrorist organization not overrun the territory, turned it into a terrorist enclave which necessitated the implementation of maritime zones and later the naval blockade and had it not ousted the internationally recognized representatives of the Palestinian people authorized with signing agreements on their behalf, there may have been more opportunity for exploitation of offshore gas resources.

But of course it is much easier just to vaguely lay any blame at Israel’s door rather than to trouble BBC audiences with an exact and detailed account of events for which Palestinians might be perceived to have some responsibility.

May 17 2013

BBC’s Davies describes new Golan fence as ‘controversial’

The ‘Features & Analysis’ section of the Middle East page of the BBC News website included an item by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Wyre Davies on May 12^th entitled “Israel prepares for the worst as tensions over Syria grow“.

In that piece, readers once again see the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hizballah described in cartoonish terms as Israel’s “arch-enemy in southern Lebanon” and once again the writer manages to produce an entire article based around the subject of Israeli responses to weapons transfers to Hizballah via Syria without explaining the all-important underlying UN Security Council resolution 1701.

Davies’ main theme in this feature is that Israel is preparing itself for another round of conflict with Hizballah – an assertion which will not be news to anyone with even a basic familiarity with the Middle East.

“It is obvious as well, that not just the municipality of Haifa but the Israeli government and the higher echelons of the army are getting ready for the possibility if not the probability of another conflict in the north.”

However, Davies appears to have swallowed the same dubious claims regarding the Iron Dome missile defence system as promoted by his colleagues Kevin Connolly and Jonathan Marcus in recent weeks.

“Driving out of Haifa, newly installed batteries of the much vaunted Iron Dome anti-missile defence system are visible in fields to the north of the city.

After the system was successfully used in last year’s Gaza conflict, it should provide added security for Haifa and other northern towns in the event of another conflict, even though there is still a debate about how effective the system – developed in Israel and financed by the United States – actually is.”

Later on in the article comes this rather curious statement:

“Although all of the intelligence and military assessments concur that the greatest immediate threat to Israel still comes from the north and Hezbollah, in recent weeks and months there has also been a great deal of concern and attention focused on the eastern frontier.”

That analysis suggests that Davies has not entirely grasped the fact that whilst Hizballah’s traditional stomping ground is indeed southern Lebanon (to the north of Israel), its record of activity abroad and its involvement in the Syrian civil war indicate that it is by no means confined to that geographical location. The Lebanese website Naharnet reported earlier in the week that Hizballah has been involved in the recent fierce fighting in the Dara’a area in southern Syria – close to the borders with both Jordan and Israel – and other reports suggest that the terror organisation’s presence in that region has, with Iranian prompting, received Bashar Assad’s blessing.

Meanwhile, on the morning of May 15^th, mortars from Syria landed in the area of Mount Hermon in the northern Golan Heights, with the fire later being claimed by an Islamist group operating in Syria. On the same day a New Zealander serving with UNTSO was abducted from an observation post in the Golan, apparently together with two others, but released after a few hours. In southern Lebanon a UNIFIL post was overrun with three soldiers also briefly kidnapped and equipment and ammunition stolen. None of the above incidents has so far been reported by the BBC. (Also unreported was missile fire on the same day on Israel’s southern area of Eshkol.)

The repeated incidents of abductions of UN personnel in the Golan Heights have already had a detrimental effect upon peace-keeping activities along that border (one imagines much to the delight – if not intent – of the assorted Islamist groups located in the area) and an alleged recent EU statement suggests that the same could apply to the Lebanese – Israeli frontier. Ironically, during a visit to Lebanon on May 13^th, the UN Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping saw fit to whitewash the long-standing failure of his organisation to implement UN SC 1701 which has led to the current situation in which Hizballah is able to threaten regional stability on several fronts.

“In his remarks, Mr. Ladsous commended Israel and Lebanon for their continued commitment to the cessation of hostilities and the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hizbollah, and calls for respect for the Blue Line, the disarming of all militias in Lebanon, and an end to arms smuggling in the area.”

Towards the end of Davies’ article we find another bizarre statement:

“Israel’s response to the fighting and upheaval on the Syrian side of the plateau has been spectacular if controversial.

A massive new 3m (10ft) high fence has been built in almost no time along the entire length of the de-facto border and Israel’s military presence has been visibly stepped up in the region.”

What exactly Davies thinks is “spectacular” or “controversial” about replacing a forty year-old rusty fence with a new one in light of the appearance of armed Al Qaeda-affiliated groups on its other side is – to this writer at least – something of a mystery.

And for as long as the BBC continues with its practice of selective reporting of events on Israel’s northern and eastern borders – as well as those on its southern one with the Gaza Strip – BBC audiences will also remain mystified with regard to the dynamics at work in cooking up the next round of conflict – from whichever direction it may come.

May 13 2013

More revealing BBC replies to audience complaints

As noted here previously, it took the BBC some 48 hours to amend the May 5^th headline which read “Israeli strikes on Syria ‘co-ordinated with terrorists’” to “Syria says Israeli strikes ‘co-ordinated with terrorists’”.

A BBC Watch reader has informed us of the reply he received to his complaint about the wording of the original headline, from which we learn that baseless Syrian regime propaganda is apparently “newsworthy”. That might indeed be considered to be the case if the BBC had provided its audiences with some insight as to why the Assad regime considers making such bizarre claims useful to its cause, but it did not do that. Instead, it merely garnished that regime propaganda with the BBC stamp of ‘reliability’.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your comments regarding http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22419995

The original headline was incomplete and insufficient. It has been changed, which we acknowledge at the foot of the report, to make it absolutely clear that the claim that Israel had co-ordinated its strikes with Syrian rebels was made by Syria. This was of course made absolutely clear within the report. We would argue that it is newsworthy that the Syrian regime has claimed that Israeli strikes were coordinated with Syrian rebels. The Israeli point of view on the strikes and the threat that Syria constitutes is amply explained in the analysis box on the report by our Jerusalem correspondent and in these sidebars:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21275289

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22419221

It is clear from our report that the word ‘terrorists’ to refer to Syrian rebels is used by officials of the Syrian regime.

Best regards,

Middle East desk

BBC News website

However, the first link presented as supposedly “amply” explaining the Israeli point of view by whoever wrote this reply leads to the political polemic addressed here, which does nothing whatsoever to balance the BBC’s promotion of Syrian regime propaganda: quite the opposite, in fact.

The BBC’s response to a separate complaint concerning the use of the word ‘settler’ to describe Evyatar Borovsky in a headline relating to his murder in a terror attack on April 30^th is brought to us by Honest Reporting. From that reply we learn that the BBC considers the single most important defining factor about any Israeli to be his or her place of residence and that people – or more specifically, Jews – living over the ‘green line’ cannot be categorized as Israelis.

“We used the word “settler” because it is, in the first instance, the word that most accurately and completely describes the victim of Tuesday’s attack. Obviously, lower down in the report, we give more detail on the victim.

“Israeli” is wrong here because it does not indicate that Eviatar Borovzky lived in the West Bank. Under international law, the West Bank is occupied territories and Israelis who live there are therefore settlers. This in no way mitigates or justifies an act of murder. We are, for a general international news audience, trying to be as clear as possible about who killed whom and where. All three leading international news agencies – Reuters, the Associated Press and AFP – used exactly the same phrasing us we did.”

Evyatar Borovsky was murdered for no other reason than the fact that he was an Israeli citizen. The terrorist did not request information regarding his postcode before deciding whether or not to stab him to death at a bus stop. It is high time the BBC brought itself up to speed with that unpleasant reality and ceased its offensive, dehumanising and misleading habit of dividing Israelis into ‘good’ ones who live where it thinks they should be allowed to live and ‘settlers’ who do not – according to the BBC’s own partisan and politically motivated interpretations of “international law”. It is also high time that the BBC recognised that whilst some legal opinions regarding the status of communities in Judea and Samaria might question the legitimacy of the towns and villages themselves, the issue of legality does not extend to the people living in them, who all hold Israeli citizenship.

Of course that is probably too much to expect from an organisation which clearly believes that it is acceptable for it to make paternalistic decisions about when and where ” ‘Israeli’ is wrong”. Those arbitrary and ill-informed decisions anachronistically trample the rights of a people to self-determination and self-identification in a manner which it is difficult to imagine the BBC considering doing with regard to other nations.

May 11 2013

Diatribe against anti-terrorist fence on BBC Radio 4

As may have been anticipated, episode four of John McCarthy’s radio series “In a Prince’s Footsteps” – broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on May 9^th 2013 and available here for a limited period of time – consisted of fifteen minutes of undiluted propaganda.

Beginning in the village of al Jib – which is located in Area B and therefore under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority – McCarthy was quick to acquaint listeners with the main focus of his programme.

“We’re now stopped looking out over the hillsides toward the neighbouring villages. Separation wall is visible in the distance.”

At 2:25, in response to a question from McCarthy about the direction of the second village on his itinerary, a local man tells him:

“Before the wall, we got from here to Beit Ur about five, six minutes. Now you must go to Ramallah and there about one hour to go to Beit Ur.

Following that, listeners are introduced to McCarthy’s mind-reading abilities:

“And I think it’s particularly poignant for them [the villagers] as they think about the places that the Prince went in an hour or so on horseback. Now because of the Israeli barrier – what they call the separation wall – they cannot get there without taking massive detours through the countryside. So this picture is important to them because it reminds them of what life had been like in former times.”

Next, the village mayor labours the point still further:

“Before the wall we can go from here to Ramallah just five minutes. From here, from al Jib village, to the Damascus Gate, just seven minutes. Now we cannot go to Jerusalem. We are village from Jerusalem district, but we cannot go to Jerusalem.”

McCarthy interjects:

“So you do not have the right ID anymore. They will not let you ..”

The mayor replies:

“If anyone want to go to Jerusalem now, he must go to Ramallah and to the checkpoint. If you want to go to your land, you can’t.”

McCarthy asks:

“How do you earn a living if you cannot go to Jerusalem, your farm land has been taken away – you cannot use that. How do you all survive? What do you do?”

The mayor replies: “Now we use this land – from the wall to the village. Very difficult life.”

Another man interjects: “Very hard”. The mayor echoes: “Very, very hard.”

In response to a question from McCarthy about the future of the village’s children, the mayor answers:

“It’s more difficult. I think it more difficult if the Israelien (sic) occupation is still here. If the Israelien (sic) go, maybe the future is good.”

Of course McCarthy offers no evidence for his claim that the villagers’ lands have been “taken away” and fails to make clear the fact that such lands are generally accessible via agricultural gates in the anti-terrorist fence. McCarthy also makes absolutely no effort to explain to listeners that his interviewees have lived under the control of the Palestinian Authority for almost two decades, according to the terms of the Oslo Accords signed by that body, and that their complaints that they do not have unlimited access to Israel’s capital city should therefore be weighed within that framework.

Next, at 5:59, McCarthy speaks to Eugene Rogan from Oxford University in what is presumably the section of the programme supposed to tick the impartiality box.

JM: “The Israeli government says that the barrier is necessary to protect its citizens from potential Palestinian suicide bombers and other attacks. Eugene Rogan is a fellow of the Middle East Centre at Oxford University. Eugene, the work on the barrier started in 2000: what actually prompted construction?”

McCarthy inaccurately brings the date of commencement of construction work on the first section of the anti-terrorist fence forward by at least a full two years. The second Intifada began at the end of September 2000 and the Israeli government authorized the construction of a fence in July 2001. The decision to start work on the first section of the fence was made in June 2002 and Israelis had suffered almost three years of non-stop terror attacks before that first section was completed in July 2003. During that time, 73 terror attacks originating in Samaria were carried out, killing 293 Israelis and wounding 1950 others.

Rogan responds:

“Coming out of the violence of the second Intifada the government of Israel took the view that it needed to put a physical barrier between the Palestinians and the Israelis to stop the violence that was ravaging Israeli towns. I think the international community was very comfortable with the idea that a barrier be put up to separate Israelis and Palestinians. The real issue was the course the barrier would follow. It’s the way in which the wall encroaches upon territory to the east of the green line which marked the boundary between Israel and the West Bank before June 1967. That’s really caused the trouble.”

For an Oxford scholar, Rogan makes some very basic mistakes here. Firstly, the ‘green line’ is of course actually the 1949 Armistice Line and it never constituted a “boundary” in any legal sense of the term, as was made amply clear in the Armistice Agreement itself.

“Article II
With a specific view to the implementation of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948, the following principles and purposes are affirmed:

1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognised;

2. It is also recognised that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.”

Secondly, the anti-terrorist fence was always intended to be just that: a structure – envisioned as being temporary by Israeli governments which initially opposed public pressure for its construction – aimed at curbing the access of terrorists from the PA controlled areas to Israeli towns and cities. Perhaps if journalists and academics employed the correct terminology to describe the structure, they would also be clearer about its function. But that is all too often not the case, with too many having adopted the terminology of Palestinian propaganda to the degree that they are capable of describing a structure which is 95% wire fencing as a “wall”.

Like many others with political motivations, Rogan ignores the fact that the fence was never intended to define borders or co-opt territory. He also deftly skirts round the obvious need to inform listeners of the fact that the anti-terrorist fence has a proven track record of achieving its aim.

McCarthy continues:

“It’s interesting visiting villages in the area. Their access to Jerusalem, their access perhaps to each other, is affected by the route of the barrier. Clearly that has a dramatic effect on the lives of the villagers as they explain it. Do they have any recourse to Israel which is obviously occupying the West Bank?”

Rogan replies:

“Interestingly enough the Supreme Court has refused to take a stand on the wall as a whole, but when Palestinians take specific segments of the wall to the Israeli courts to complain that this encroaches upon their human rights in terms of cutting them off from their livelihoods or separating their houses from their neighbourhoods and things like that, they’ve often found these Israeli courts supportive and that the government of Israel has been forced to change the course of direction of the wall to accommodate this decision, but you know it’s a very painstaking process for the Palestinians and it’s still the case that the wall has created a situation that’s really intensely difficult for Palestinians living alongside the wall.”

Apparently Rogan did not deem it necessary to mention that rebuilding a family after one or more of its members has been blown to smithereens on a bus, in a café or in a shopping centre is also “very painstaking” and “intensely difficult”. As for Rogan’s disingenuous claim that the Israeli Supreme Court has “refused to take a stand” on the subject of the anti-terrorist fence, the opposite is in fact the case, although the particular “stand” taken is apparently not to Mr Rogan’s taste.

“The Israeli Court shall continue to examine each of the segments of the fence, as they are brought for its decision and according to its customary model of proceedings; it shall ask itself, regarding each and every segment, whether it represents a proportional balance between the security-military need and the rights of the local population. If its answer regarding a particular segment of the fence is positive, it shall hold that that segment is legal. If its answer is negative, it shall hold that that segment is not legal. In doing so, the Court shall not ignore the entire picture; its decision will always regard each segment as a part of a whole.”

Next, McCarthy travels to Beit Ur al Fauqa in the Palestinian Authority controlled Area A. Interestingly, he does so in the company of two activists from the Palestinian NGO the Land Research Centre – but fails to disclose that organisation’s political aims, as required by the BBC Editorial Guidelines on impartiality.

“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.”

The Land Research Centre was established in 1986 by Faisal Husseini.

“The Land Research Centre (which, despite its participation in the BDS campaign, has received funding from the UK via DFID) engages in the production of reports, often in collaboration with ARIJ and with EU financial support, which do little to hide their political motivations, going under the banner of “Monitoring Israeli Colonisation Activities in the Palestinian Territories”. In one such recent report, the Land Research Centre reportedly stated that:

“The Land research center warned that the Israeli occupation government intends to bring more Jews from all over the world to occupied Palestine in order to change its demographic composition and annex more lands for their settlements.

The center said in a report that the Israeli legislation regarding the construction of roads for Jewish settlers so as to protect what they call the state lands reveals that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is aimed to Judaize them and bring Jews to live in place of the Palestinian natives.

The Israeli occupation annexed the Palestinian lands, destroyed agricultural lands, demolished homes, displaced their residents, built settlements for Jewish settlers and then unleashed them to control the tops of mountains, expand their outposts, launch attacks on Palestinian property and then set up an apartheid wall that dismembered Palestine and isolated and besieged its villages, it added.” “

In Beit Ur al Fauqa, McCarthy allows an interviewee – with apparently as much difficulty in understanding cause and effect as he himself seems to have – to indulge in romantic nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ of the first Intifada.

“Back then when the intifada was ongoing things weren’t as bad as today because there weren’t as many checkpoints. There weren’t this kind of separation that is going on these days.”

“Since the beginning of the nineties the separation started between like separating Arabs from Israelis and now they’re like contained in their communities they cannot really – like they have almost no relations whatsoever with the other side because the other side just isolated them in a way.”

Apparently, Mr Samara and Mr McCarthy do not ‘do’ irony either:

“It’s important to recognize the existence of the others. Not to destroy the future of the others. To live with the others in peace. So we can live with them, but without these barriers or these checkpoints.”

McCarthy’s entire broadcast is clearly nothing more than a politically motivated factually skewed diatribe against the anti-terrorist fence which includes numerous breaches of BBC standards on accuracy and impartiality. One of the most glaring of those breaches is the repeated use by McCarthy and his various interviewees of politically inspired terminology to describe the anti-terrorist fence in flagrant contravention of even the BBC’s own specific guidelines on the subject.

” BARRIER

BBC journalists should try to avoid using terminology favoured by one side or another in any dispute.

The BBC uses the terms “barrier”, “separation barrier” or “West Bank barrier” as acceptable generic descriptions to avoid the political connotations of “security fence” (preferred by the Israeli government) or “apartheid wall” (preferred by the Palestinians).

The United Nations also uses the term “barrier”.

Of course, a reporter standing in front of a concrete section of the barrier might choose to say “this wall” or use a more exact description in the light of what he or she is looking at.”

The fact that this broadcast got past the BBC’s system of editorial checks and balances for Middle East-related content indicates that a very serious review of that system is clearly urgently needed.

May 7 2013

BBC Q&A on alleged Israeli air strikes is political polemic

Among the BBC’s ample coverage of the alleged Israeli air-strikes on targets in Syria related to the transfer of advanced weapons to the terrorist organisation Hizballah, we find a ‘Question & Answer’ article dated May 5th 2013.

The article opens:

“Israel has carried out two attacks in two days on Syrian targets – three since the beginning of this year – raising the prospect of its deeper involvement in Syria’s civil war.”

The suggestion that Israel is already involved in the civil war in Syria – and may become more so – is inaccurate and misleading. Any Israeli actions are not intended to benefit either one side or the other in the conflict, but solely to reduce dangers to Israeli civilians. Should Syria or Hizballah choose to retaliate, that would signal the opening of another round in existing, separate conflicts.

The article states:

“The Lebanese military complained of multiple overflights in their airspace by Israeli warplanes on Friday 3 May. Later that day unnamed US officials began briefing media outlets that Israeli jets had hit targets in Syria. Reports said the targets were sophisticated weapons heading towards Lebanon, where they would be delivered to Israel’s arch-enemy, Hezbollah.”

“Arch-enemy”? That reads more like the script for a Bond film than measured, professional analysis.

The piece continues:

“In the early hours of 5 May, Damascus was shaken by a number of explosions. Residents told the BBC the blasts were the most powerful to hit Damascus since the start of the country’s civil conflict in 2011.

Syrian state media accused Israel of launching rocket attacks on the Jamraya scientific research institute. Some Western experts have said the institute is involved with chemical-weapons research.

However, unnamed Western and Israeli security officials briefed later that the target was not Jamraya. It was once again weapons caches heading to Hezbollah, which may have been stored near the research facility.”

A very significant and glaring fault in an article purportedly intended to provide BBC audiences with background information and context to the specific events, is its failure to put sufficient accent upon the Iranian factor – either in the context of Hizballah as an Iranian proxy, Iran as the supplier of weapons or the Iranian presence on the soil of its Syrian ally.

“The New York Times said on Saturday that Iranian surface-to-surface Fateh-10 missiles were struck at a Damascus airport warehouse that was under the guard of the Iranian Quds Force and Hezbollah. The projectiles have a range of 300 kilometers.”

But only in the thirteenth paragraph of this BBC article do its readers learn of any kind of Iranian involvement in the story from this brief docile portrayal:

“After the 5 May attack unnamed Israeli officials confirmed the assault and said the target was a shipment of Fateh-110 missiles, which were being transported from Iran to Lebanon via Syria.”

Under the sub-heading “Why would Israel attack?”, readers are told the following: [emphasis added]

“Taken at face value, the statements from unnamed officials suggest Israel’s actions are defensive. It fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006, and regards the Lebanese militant group as its key regional enemy. On this analysis, cutting the supply line to Hezbollah is crucial to stop a potential conflict.”

“At face value”? Whilst it does not specifically present any other theory, the BBC seems to be suggesting here that there are in fact other motives for Israel’s actions besides the defence of its citizens. That notion was also promoted in a Tweet from Wyre Davies on May 6^th.

Four paragraphs on, the article once again promotes the erroneous notion of Israeli involvement in the Syrian civil war – obviously sourced from Syrian regime propaganda.

“Also, Israel risks becoming a major factor in Syria’s civil war. The Assad regime has already portrayed anti-government rebels and Israel as working “hand in glove”. And the strikes have brought a chorus of disapproval from the wider region, further shoring up Mr Assad’s position.”

Interestingly, the BBC does not typically classify hands-on practical support and training provided to the rebel faction by countries such as the United States, the UK and France as ‘intervention’ in Syria’s civil war or deem them ‘major factors’ in that conflict. Neither does it parrot Syrian regime propaganda on that subject.

The article also states:

“Israel also has its own dispute with Syria over the Golan Heights. Although the border has been relatively peaceful, concern is growing that increasing chaos in Syria could spill over.”

The BBC’s definition of “relatively peaceful” apparently includes numerous incidents of cross-border shelling and shooting which, although consistently under-reported by the BBC, have long passed the theoretical threshold of “could spill over”.

Citing no named legal sources for its assertion, the article goes on to say:

“The risks of carrying out strikes are huge. The attacks, if proved, would be likely to breach international law and could lead to retaliation.”

This gratuitous reference to “international law” is clearly intended more for politically motivated dramatic effect than to inform readers of any relevant factual legal background. Interestingly, the legal aspect of the transfer of long-range surface to surface missiles to the terrorist militia Hizballah in direct contravention of UN Security Council resolution 1701 does not appear to interest this BBC writer.

Significantly, the understanding of and support for the alleged air strikes from the US and the UK goes unmentioned both in this article and other BBC coverage of the subject.

The article continues with a wonderful display of BBC equivalence:

“This year’s strikes are the first inside Syria since September 2007, when Israeli warplanes were suspected of destroying a site that UN monitors said was likely to have been a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.” [emphasis added]

The BBC’s polemical promotion of its ‘world view’ – disingenuously disguised as supposedly factual background material – is cringingly transparent in this article. Not only doing little to meet the BBC’s obligation to contribute to audience understanding of the real context of recent events in the region, it actually hampers any such understanding by advancing the conspiracy theories of the Syrian dictatorship and glossing over vital components of the picture such as Iranian involvement.

The BBC does not yet appear to grasp that its overall reputation as a supplier of accurate and impartial information is severely damaged by such shoddy journalism on the subject of the Middle East.

May 5 2013

BBC promotes Assad propaganda in Syria reports

The BBC’s reporting on the weekend’s unfolding events in Syria is in top gear. On May 4th an article entitled “Israeli warplanes launch air strike inside Syria” – including a filmed report by Wyre Davies which was also broadcast on BBC television news – appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website.

That frequently amended article relating to the events of May 2^nd/3^rd was based on a CNN report which in turn was based on claims made by anonymous US officials. According to the BBC article, a consignment of weapons destined for Hizballah was the target of Israeli air-strikes. The article states: [emphasis added]

“While Israel rarely comments on specific operations, it has repeatedly said it would act if it felt Syrian weapons, conventional or chemical, were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah, says the BBC’s Wyre Davies in Jerusalem.”

Actually, it is probably safe to assume that any decision to send Israeli pilots on a mission to neutralize weapons consignments in enemy territory is based on considerably more than a ‘feeling’.

On May 5^th coverage expanded to include the events of the night of May 4^th/5^th under the headline “Damascus ‘hit by Israeli strikes’”.

The coverage included a rolling article entitled “Damascus military facilities ‘hit by Israel rockets’” in which readers were informed that:

“The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut says Israel’s intervention is a very dangerous development.

He says Israel will not want to be seen as being involved in the conflict, but Syria’s state media is hammering the message that the rebels are working hand in glove with Israel.”

Apparently, any Israeli action is to be considered much more of a “dangerous development” than the possibility of long-range missiles or chemical weapons falling into the hands of a terrorist organisation. And of course that particular “message” from the Syrian authorities is nothing new – and neither is its uncritical repetition by the BBC.

That passage was later replaced by the following one:

“The BBC’s Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says the latest developments are a significant escalation in Israel’s involvement in the conflict.

She says Israel has already responded to fears of retaliation by locating two batteries of its Iron Dome missile defence system near Haifa, close to the Lebanese border.”

Haifa is, of course, some 43 kilometers from the Lebanese border.

The latest version of that article includes a side box of analysis by Jim Muir in which he – like Yolande Knell – seems to be incapable of distinguishing between an act of self-defence and “involvement” in the Syrian civil war.

“Two air strikes in 48 hours does indeed start to look perilously like the involvement in Syria’s internal crisis the Israelis have always said they want to avoid, especially when they are visibly taking out military targets on the very edge of Damascus.” […]

“Israel has said that its only concern is to prevent advanced weapons being handed over to Hezbollah. Objectively it would be hard to see Israel’s interest in helping trigger an uncontrolled collapse of the regime, leaving the field open to rebel groups among which Islamist radicals currently make the running.”

Muir appears to be incapable of grasping the fact that beyond the issue of weapons being transferred by the Syrian regime to its allies Hizballah – a situation which would prompt further deterioration of the security situation in Lebanon and Syria as well as Israel – the very real possibility of weapons falling into the hands of those “Islamist radicals” also carries with it the potential for further destabilization of the region as a whole.

The BBC’s coverage also includes an article by its Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus entitled “Israeli air strikes: A warning to Syria’s Assad“. Whilst all in all a balanced and informative article, in common with the BBC coverage of the strike on a weapons convoy last January, it fails to inform readers of the all-important context of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the international community’s utter failure to either disband Hizballah or prevent it from rearming after the 2006 war which has enabled the current situation to come about.

Regrettably, the BBC also saw fit to resurrect a deeply flawed article from 2011 under the link titled “Are Hezbollah terrorists?” for inclusion in its coverage of these events.

But the worst was yet to come. A later BBC report ran the headline “Israeli strikes on Syria ‘co-ordinated with terrorists ‘“, yet again uncritically repeating baseless statements put out by the Assad regime.

“The Syrian foreign ministry statement said three military sites had been hit – a research centre at Jamraya, a paragliding airport in the al-Dimas area of Damascus and a site in Maysaloun.

“The flagrant Israeli attack on armed forces sites in Syria underlines the co-ordination between ‘Israel’, terrorist groups and… the al-Nusra Front,” the statement said, referring to al-Qaeda militants fighting with the rebels. […]

The statement added: “This leaves no room for doubt Israel is the beneficiary, the mover and sometime the executor of the terrorist acts which Syria is witnessing and which target it as a state and people directly or through its tools inside.” “

Official BBC Tweets also promoted the same propaganda.

As one Tweeter succinctly put it:

And no – the use of inverted commas in that headline does not excuse the unquestioned, context-free promotion of propaganda from a regime which has already killed over 70,000 of its own people.

May 3 2013

BBC Watch helps secure media correction in Canada

Honest Reporting Canada informs us that a BBC Watch article of April 30^th aided the securing of an on-air correction to a report by CBC which – in a similar manner to the BBC report addressed in that item – mistakenly gave impression was given that terror attacks on Israelis in Judea & Samaria are a rare event. מצפה יריחו‎‎. Photo: binyamin.org.il

We are, of course, glad to have been of help.

Similarly, two incidents on the evening of Thursday, May 2^nd went unreported by the BBC. Two mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip at communities in the Eshkol Regional Council and in a separate event shots were fired at an Israeli and a tourist hiking in the area between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, near Mitzpe Yericho.

The day before – May 1^st – was not particularly peaceful either.

And that’s just the first two days of May.

May 3 2013

The curious CV of a former BBC Arabic journalist

British readers may have heard of the ‘Al Mayadeen’ TV station which was launched in June 2012 as an alternative to Al Jazeera and broadcasts from Beirut – if only because it employs one George Galloway for, according to The Times, some £80,000 a year. Those familiar with Galloway’s record at the Iranian outfit ‘Press TV’ will perhaps not be surprised to learn that Al Mayadeen’s financial backers are alleged to be Iranian and Syrian. That is denied by the station’s Tunisian director, who formerly worked for Al Jazeera – as did his colleague Sami Kleib (also spelt Kulyab). Kleib’s wife Luna Shibl – previously of Al Jazeera too – has apparently worked as a media advisor to Bashar al Assad.

Al Mayadeen’s Chief Correspondent is another former Al Jazeera employee and – like several of his new colleagues - Ali Hashem resigned in March 2012 after just a year with that station, as a result of differences with the Qatari channel over its reporting of the ‘Arab Spring’. Hashem also writes for other outlets, including ‘Al Monitor‘.

Before joining Al Jazeera, Ali Hashem worked for BBC Arabic and some of his reports can be seen here, here, here, here and here.

But the more interesting part of Ali Hashem’s CV comes before he joined the BBC, when he worked for the Hizballah TV station Al Manar – the self-proclaimed “station of the resistance” – which was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity by the United States in 2004. Al Manar was also banned by France on the grounds of its incitement of racial hatred, as well as by Germany and other countries.

In this video Ali Hashem can be seen being interviewed by a Channel 4 reporter on the subject of the Israeli air strike on Al Manar’s communications facilities during the Second Lebanon war which broke out on July 12^th 2006 after a cross-border attack by Hizballah. During that war Ali Hashem was one of Hizballah TV’s men on the ground in southern Lebanon and was on the scene at Qana on July 30th 2006 after 28 Lebanese civilians tragically died following an Israeli air strike on a Hizballah rocket launching site. Hashem’s report as it was broadcast on Al Manar TV can be seen here (warning: graphic images).

The fact that at the time, the BBC apparently did not consider there to be anything inappropriate about recruiting a recent employee of a terrorist organisation’s media arm is frankly amazing, especially as Mr Hashem’s newest gig suggests that his political sympathies and affiliations have not changed vastly since he worked for Hizballah.

One can only hope that the BBC’s Human Resources department has reviewed its hiring policy since then.

May 1 2013

Dumbing down terror for BBC audiences

On April 30^th and May 1^st 2013 the homepage of the Middle East section of the BBC News website featured the headline “Strike on Gaza kills Palestinian”.

That vaguely titled link leads to an article entitled “Gaza city: Israeli air strike kills Palestinian militant” which has been amended several times since its original publication.

Seeing as the BBC invests a great deal of effort in the branding of Palestinian terror organisations of all stripes as ‘militants’ (with the aim of avoiding “value judgements“), readers might naturally assume that Haytham al Mishal belonged to any one of the plethora of well-known terror organisations operating in the Gaza Strip such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah or the PFLP. In fact, the article opens by providing readers with more information about his transport arrangements than his terror affiliations.

“A Palestinian militant has been killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City.

Haytham al-Mishal, 29, was hit while riding a motorcycle. At least one other person was reportedly also injured.”

Only in the third paragraph do we find a foggy reference to some unspecified “militant group” or other:

“A militant group which fired rockets at the southern Israeli city of Eilat two weeks ago said Mishal had been one of its members.”

That still does not adequately explain events to the reader and only in the ninth paragraph does any light begin to be cast upon the real background to the story.

“The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Mishal was a weapons expert who had made rockets and bombs for different militant groups.

It said Mishal had been involved in “extensive terror activity against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers”, including the attack on Eilat, a popular tourist destination on Israel’s southern Red Sea coast.

In that incident, two rockets fired from the Egyptian Sinai by Gaza-based militants landed in open areas, without causing damage or injury.”

Finally, in the twelfth paragraph, readers are informed:

“The Mujahedeen Shura Council said Misshal had been one of its members.”

Does the BBC make any effort to explain to its audiences who or what the Mujahedeen Shura Council (also known as the Mujahideen Shura Council in the environs of Jerusalem and the Majilis Shura al Mujahideen) actually are? Not at all: as far as the BBC is concerned, this is just another group for readers to file away under “Palestinian militants”.

The use of the word “militants” is of course very misleading as, by definition, militance may or may not include physical violence such as terrorism. Thus, BBC audiences actually have no idea whether the people so described by the BBC are placard-waving political activists or missile-firing terrorists. As often stated here in the past, the fact that the BBC elects to use that word in order to avoid making “value judgements” is in fact a value judgement in itself.

So what exactly is the Mujahedeen Shura Council (MSC)? Apparently established in 2011, the organisation is actually a coalition of Salafist Jihadist groups based in the Gaza Strip, although some of its operatives appear to be foreigners. The group has on several occasions engaged in missile fire from the Gaza Strip directed at Israeli civilians in nearby communities as well as in attacks upon Israeli soldiers and it was responsible for the terror attack of June 18^th 2012 in which 35 year-old Saeed Fashafshe from Haifa was killed. Following that terror attack, the group stated that it was ” ‘a gift to our brothers in Qaedat al Jihad and Sheikh Zawahiri’ and a retaliation for the death of Osama bin Laden.” After the launch of missiles in August 2012, the MSC put out an ‘explanatory’ statement saying, inter alia:

“Jihad for the sake of Allah against the criminal Jews is an obligation that we draw closer to Allah whenever we find a way to that, in any place, by what Allah facilitates to us from the reasons of power and repelling. […]

Let the Jews know that the holy sites, sanctities and blood have men who don’t sleep over oppression, and aren’t pleased by humiliation, and spend their blood and what they own cheaply for that, and what is coming is worst and more bitter by the willing of Allah the Irresistible Avenger.”

Most recently, as stated in the BBC article, on April 17^th the MSC launched missile attacks on Eilat from the Sinai.

The BBC article also makes no attempt to provide readers with the vital background necessary to understand this incident in context. It does not explain that the MSC is just one of several Jihadist groups operating in the Sinai and bringing about deterioration in the stability of that area which is of great concern not only to Israel, but to Egypt in particular. Neither does the report make any mention of the ensuing tensions between Egypt and Hamas which stem from the latter’s ‘blind eye’ policy towards Salafist Jihadists moving back and forth unhindered from the Gaza Strip to Sinai as and when they please and their firing of missiles from territory controlled by Hamas.

For the BBC, this is a simple story of a “Palestinian militant” on a motorbike killed by an Israeli air strike. It apparently does not believe that its audiences need to know anything more than that.

So much for the BBC stated mission to “build a global understanding of international issues” and to “enhance UK audiences’ awareness and understanding of international issues”.

Apr 30 2013

BBC claims attacks on Israelis in Judea & Samaria are “rare”

Early on the morning of Tuesday, April 30^th, thirty-two year-old Evyatar Borovsky from Yitzhar (the father of five children) was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist whilst standing at a bus stop at the Tapuach junction in Samaria.

An article on the subject titled “Israeli settler killed in West Bank” appeared in the Middle East section of the BBC News website shortly afterwards.

The article, which has been amended several times since its initial publication, opens:

“An Israeli settler has been killed by a Palestinian at a bus stop in the northern West Bank, police say.”

Interestingly, the BBC writer found it necessary to describe the Israeli man as a “settler” both in the headline and the article, although audiences would have understood the sentence perfectly well without that political addition. The use of the word “killed” does not reflect the fact that the assailant was in prior possession of a knife and stabbed his victim from behind. In the UK, that would most likely be described as murder.

The article goes on:

“The attack took place at Tapuah Junction, near the city of Nablus, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.”

Tapuach Junction is of course actually near Kfar Tapuach and is closer to Ariel than to Nablus (Schem).

The report continues: [emphasis added]

“Reports say the Palestinian stabbed the man before grabbing his gun and shooting him. The attacker was shot and wounded by security forces, police say.

Palestinians and Israeli troops have clashed recently in the West Bank, but attacks on settlers there are rare.”

That, of course, is a complete BBC fabrication.

The article also expands that theme later on:

“Tuesday’s attack is the first time a settler has been killed by a Palestinian in the West Bank since 2011.”

Indeed, since September 2011 there have, fortunately, been no fatalities as a result of terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, but that is not through want of trying, as the family of Adele Biton – who is still fighting for her life after the stone-throwing attack on her mother’s car in March – is only too aware.

In March 2013 the Israel Security Agency reported 101 terror attacks in Judea and Samaria. In February, 100 attacks – 84 of those fire-bombings. January 2013 saw 56 terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, including the stabbing of a teenager at the same Tapuach Junction. In December 2012 eighty-one terror attacks took place in Judea and Samaria and in November 2012 there were 122 attacks.

That means that in the one hundred and fifty-one days from the beginning of November 2012 until the end of March 2013, four hundred and sixty terror attacks took place in Judea and Samaria. That is an average of over three a day.

16 month-old child hurt in stone-throwing attack near Tapuach junction, September 2012

Judea and Samaria are 125 kilometers in length and between 25 and 50 kilometers wide, with a total area of 5,860 km², and with the areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority off limit to Israelis. The English county of Cumbria is 907 km² larger than the whole of Judea and Samaria. If the residents of Cumbria were to suffer an average of three daily terrorist stabbings, shootings, fire-bombings, IED attacks or attempted murder with rocks thrown at moving vehicles, we can be pretty confident that the BBC would not describe such attacks as “rare” – even if they did not end in fatalities.

Not only is this latest attempt by the BBC to downplay and whitewash Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians living in Judea and Samaria a gross breach of BBC Editorial Guidelines on accuracy and impartiality, it is also quite frankly repugnant.

Update: It appears that approving messages of support for the murderer have been posted on the official Facebook page of Fatah – PA president Mahmoud Abbas’ own party. We will of course await the ensuing BBC update to its report.

Update 2: BBC News Online’s Middle East desk has now slightly revised this report and paragraph four now reads: [emphasis added]

“Palestinians and Israeli troops have clashed recently in the West Bank, but fatal attacks on settlers are rare.”

Whilst the amendment is welcome, it contributes nothing towards accurately informing BBC audiences of the scale of terrorism against Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria and still airbrushes the intentions of those perpetrating the daily attacks out of the picture. “Fatal attacks” – i.e. murder – may not be a quotidian event, but attempted murder certainly is and the BBC’s whitewashing of that fact continues to compromise its reputation for accuracy and impartiality.

BBC Watch

Tag Archives: terrorism