As regular readers know the BBC’s coverage of vehicular terror attacks around the world throughout the last eighteen months has been remarkable for the fact that when such attacks took place in Barcelona, Stockholm, Nice, Berlin and London – despite its supposed editorial policy of avoiding the word ‘terrorist’ without attribution in order to avoid “value judgements” – the BBC made appropriate use of that and related terminology in its reporting.
In contrast, attacks against Israelis using the same method are never described by the BBC as terror in its own words. The reason for that glaring double standard lies in the BBC’s failure to distinguish between method and aims, with the result being that when somebody deliberately drives a vehicle into a person or a group of people, the corporation’s description of the attack as terror – or not – depends on the perceived aims and affiliations of the perpetrator.
On November 17th a double vehicular attack took place in Gush Etzion.
“A Palestinian terrorist rammed his car into two people, seriously injuring one of them, before getting shot while trying to stab soldiers in the central West Bank on Friday morning, the army said.
The driver of the vehicle, a 17-year-old who was not immediately named, rammed his car into the first victim, a 70-year-old man, who sustained a light head wound, at the Efrat South junction, medics said.
He continued down the road to the nearby Gush Etzion Junction where he hit another Israeli man, 35, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.”
The first victim had to have ten sutures to that head wound and also suffered broken vertebrae. While the second victim was originally reported to be moderately wounded, that turned out not to be the case.
“The seriously injured victim of Friday’s car-ramming terror attack remains in a serious condition after undergoing brain surgery, the hospital said Saturday evening.
The man, Even Ezer Holaring, 35, from the Bnei Menashe community, continued to be treated in the intensive care ward and was sedated and not yet breathing on his own, the Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem said.
Holaring was seriously wounded when he was hit by a car driven by a Palestinian terrorist early in the morning as he stood at the Gush Etzion Junction south of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
His wife urged people to pray for the father of five. […]
“He suffered a head wound. He has an intracranial hemorrhage and will require brain surgery,” his doctor said. “He’s in serious condition, but he is stable.””
A week after that double attack took place, it still has not received any BBC coverage whatsoever.
If readers are perhaps inclined to conclude that the absence of BBC reporting is attributable to the fact that the attack fortunately did not result in fatalities, it is worth noting that last month the corporation did report a non-fatal car-ramming in Canada under the headline “Edmonton attack: Refugee arrested over ‘terror’ incident“, with readers being told that:
“Canadians are again shaken by a suspected terror incident that is reminiscent of recent vehicle attacks in European cities like Barcelona, London, and Berlin.”
On the other hand, visitors to the BBC News website’s Middle East page throughout the entire past week have been able to find a report produced by no fewer than three BBC employees on the topic of what some people on Twitter said about a photograph posted on another social media platform.
Priorities.
Related Articles:
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – October 2017
Reviewing BBC reporting of vehicular attacks in France and Israel
BBC coverage of Berlin terror attack again highlights double standards
Absurdity of BBC’s ‘Language when Reporting Terrorism’ guidance on display again
BBC’s vehicular terrorism double standards on display again
BBC Complaints: terror attacks in Jerusalem and Tunisia are “very different”
