BBC Trust upholds complaint by professional anti-Israel campaigner

Jewish refugees leaving the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948

As readers may have heard, the BBC Trust has upheld a complaint by professional anti-Israel campaigner Ben White. The Jewish Chronicle reports: 

“Mr White complained to the BBC, claiming that the introduction to the news report was “deeply offensive” to Palestinians who had “lost everything as a result of ethnic cleansing”.

The introduction had stated that 60 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli forces while marking Nakba Day, which the piece said was “the anniversary of Israel’s declaration of statehood which resulted in thousands of Palestinians leaving their homes”. “

BBC Watch will be addressing this subject in due course, but in the meantime, here is the ever incisive Robin Shepherd’s analysis:

“It would be just as true to say that the report in question had failed to point out that the large majority of Palestinian departures were as a result of a calculated and voluntary decision by Palestinians to leave their homes so as to allow the invading Arab armies to advance in the hope of killing off the nascent Jewish state, and most of the Jews with it.

Many others left in the fog of war. Most of the forced expulsions that did take place were in areas of strategic importance where the military had little choice but to remove the local population, which was in any case packed full of real and potential anti-Israel fighters.

An even more historically accurate report would have also pointed out that there would not have been a single refugee if the Palestinian/Arab side had followed the Jewish/Israeli side and accepted the two state solution contained within the UN Partition Plan. Instead, they opted for violence and war. Hence, the refugee problem. “

Read the rest of Robin Shepherd’s piece here

 

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