BBC ignores another example of PA glorification of terrorism

The BBC's Jerusalem Bureau once again refrains from telling BBC audiences about PA glorification of terrorism.

Earlier this month the BBC’s new man in Jerusalem told World Service listeners that Israel “has long accused Palestinian officials of using sport to glorify terrorism”.

As was noted here at the time:

“Of course BBC audiences are consistently denied the information which would enable them to know whether “Palestinian officials” do indeed use sport to glorify terrorism and Bateman failed to inform listeners that just a day prior to his report, Rajoub’s Palestinian Football Association organised a tournament named after a terrorist responsible for the murders of 125 Israelis.”

Neither are BBC audiences informed about additional ways in which the Palestinian Authority and Fatah regularly glorify terrorism and promote incitement, such as naming schools, streets and squares after terrorists.

One terrorist frequently honored by the PA is Dalal Mughrabi who participated in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 people – including thirteen children – were murdered. Schools, summer camps, squares, community centres and sports tournaments have been named after Mughrabi, as PMW has documented.

It therefore did not come as much of a surprise when a women’s centre in a village under PA control was recently dedicated to Dalal Mughrabi but what is unusual – and hence newsworthy – is the reaction of one of the refurbished building’s funders.

Photo credit: PMW

“Norway’s foreign minister on Friday condemned the Palestinian Authority for naming a women’s center in the West Bank, funded in part by the Scandinavian country, after a female terrorist.

“The glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms. Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way. We will not accept the use of Norwegian aid funding for such purposes,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende said in a statement.

Brende’s comments were made in reference to a new women’s center opened earlier this month in the West Bank town of Burqa. The center was named after Dalal Mughrabi, who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre. […]

Brende said that Norway had been unaware of the decision to name the center after Mughrabi. He demanded that the country’s name be removed from the center and that the funds it gave for construction be returned.”

In addition to that robust response from the Norwegian government, the UN also published a couple of statements concerning the unauthorised use of its UN Women logo on the building.

However, four days after it broke, none of the BBC’s locally based correspondents has yet covered this story.

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