BBC fails (again) to give audiences the full story in UN HRC article

Yet again the BBC refrains from telling audiences the full story of UN bias against Israel.

The BBC has a long history of failing to properly report the UN Human Rights Council’s institutional bias against Israel and has never addressed the issue of why that frequently and overtly displayed prejudice exists.

BBC article on Israel & UN HRC omits important context

BBC does free PR for UN HRC

What BBC audiences aren’t told about the UNHRC 

In an article specifically referring to that bias, one would nevertheless have expected BBC audiences to be provided with the relevant factual information in the BBC’s own words. However, the report titled “US warning over its UN Human Rights Council role” which appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘US & Canada’ and ‘Middle East’ pages on June 6th presents the subject in equivocal language. [emphasis added]

“The US says it is considering what part it will play on the UN’s Human Rights Council, highlighting what it calls a “biased” stance on Israel.

UN ambassador Nikki Haley said it was “hard to accept” that resolutions had been passed against Israel, a US ally, but none were considered on Venezuela.” […]

“But what seems to anger the Trump administration most about the 47-member body is what she described as its “chronic anti-Israel bias”.

Writing in the Washington Post, she complained that the council had passed more than 70 resolutions against Israel but just seven against Iran. The Bush administration, believing the council would treat Israel unfairly, boycotted the body, a decision reversed by Barack Obama.”

The article does not bother to inform BBC audiences that Obama administration officials  – including John Kerry, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power – have made the exact same point as Ambassador Haley now raises, as have senators from across the American political spectrum. Neither are they told that the previous UN Secretary General also admitted that “[d]ecades of political maneuverings have created a disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticizing Israel” or that ten years beforehand, his predecessor Kofi Anan similarly admitted UN bias against Israel.

Readers are informed that Ms Haley said:

“It’s hard to accept that this council has never considered a resolution on Venezuela and yet it adopted five biased resolutions, in March, against a single country, Israel. It is essential that this council address its chronic anti-Israel bias if it is to have any credibility.”

And that:

“In March, the UK government accused the UNHRC of an “unacceptable pattern of bias” by singling Israel out as the only country subject to mandatory discussion at every session.”

However, the BBC’s report neither names nor provides readers with an explanation of the UNHRC’s permanent ‘Agenda Item 7’ – the clause which mandates that discussion of Israel at every session – and it fails to clarify that no other nation is subject to a similar practice.

Neither does it provide audiences with numerical data concerning UNHRC bias against Israel such as the fact that since its establishment in June 2006 and up to June 2016, sixty-eight of the 135 resolutions criticising countries that were adopted by the council have been against Israel.

And while the BBC does correctly inform its audiences that “[i]n recent months, it [UNHRC] has issued resolutions on human rights in North Korea, Haiti and Myanmar, among other countries”, it does not clarify that in the same period of time, no fewer than five anti-Israel resolutions were adopted.

Yet again we see that despite the fact that it not infrequently quotes and promotes UN produced material, the BBC refrains from providing its audiences with the full range of information necessary for understanding of the story of the UN’s endemic bias against Israel.

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