BBC continues to describe terror in Jerusalem as a ‘car attack’ and terrorist as ‘driver’

Both the headline and the text of the original version of the BBC News website’s October 26th report on the death of a second victim of last week’s terror attack in Jerusalem continued the corporation’s earlier bizarre presentation of the incident as a “car attack”.

Pigua art 26 10

Likewise, the article continued to use the word terror exclusively in the context of quotes from Israeli officials.

“Officials say they are treating it as a “terrorist attack” and that the suspect had previously served a sentence in an Israeli prison “for terrorism”.”

The terrorist was described as a “driver”. [all emphasis added]

“A three-month-old girl was killed and seven injured when a Palestinian driver ran his car into a tram station.

The driver died after being shot by police as he attempted to flee.[…]

On Sunday evening clashes ensued between Palestinians and Israeli police in East Jerusalem after a “symbolic funeral” for the deceased Palestinian driver, Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi.”

Some fourteen hours after the article’s initial publication it was amended but the headline still describes the incident as a “car attack”, the terrorist is described both as an “attacker” and a “driver” and the one reference to terror is still in quotation marks.Pigua art 26 10 amended

“An Ecuadorean woman who was injured in a Palestinian attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday in which a three-month-old baby girl was also killed has died.

They were among a group of people hit when the attacker ran his car into pedestrians at a tram station.

The 21-year-old driver was shot dead by police as he attempted to flee the scene on foot. […]

Ms Mosquera and Haya Zissel Braun were killed in what police say was a “terrorist attack”.”

Relating to a separate incident, both versions of the article inaccurately describe Orwah Hammad as having been shot by “Israeli police” – rather than an army unit as was actually the case. 

Both versions of the article close:

“East Jerusalem has experienced months of unrest since a Palestinian teenager was abducted and burned to death in early July, two days after the discovery of the bodies of three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed in the occupied West Bank in mid-June.

The killings set off an escalating cycle of violence, leading to a 50-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that claimed more than 2,000 lives.”

Rioting and attacks by Palestinians since June 12th have not been confined to “East Jerusalem” and have in fact been more prevalent in Judea & Samaria.Silwad graph

Notably, no attempt is made to clarify to readers that the kidnapping and murders of the three Israeli teenagers was carried out by a Hamas cell in Hebron with funding from the Gaza Strip.

As we have seen before, the BBC is intent upon promoting the myth of a “cycle of violence” and the erroneous notion that the summer conflict between Israel and Hamas was caused by the four murders. In order to do so, it erases from audience view the hundreds of missiles launched at civilian targets in Israel between June 12th and the commencement of Operation Protective Edge on July 8th. It was of course that intense missile fire which was the reason for the military operation, with the later discovery of dozens of cross-border tunnels prompting the subsequent ground operation. The military operation could have been avoided had Hamas elected to take advantage of the ample opportunities it was given to stop the missile fire before July 8th, but the terrorist organisation chose not to do so – for reasons not by any means exclusively connected to Israel.

It is high time that the BBC ceased to promote this inaccurate version of events in which Hamas’ instigation of the hostilities is concealed from audiences.  

 

 

 

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