BBC report on Hizballah rockets omits relevant background

Once again UNSC resolution 1701 is omitted from a BBC report on Hizballah weapons.

Visitors to the BBC News website on September 20th were informed that “Hezbollah ‘has precision rockets despite Israeli strikes in Syria’“.

“The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah movement says it has acquired sophisticated rockets despite Israel’s efforts to prevent it obtaining them.

Hassan Nasrallah told supporters it did not matter what the Israelis did to try to cut supply routes because the group already possessed “precision rockets”.

He did not produce evidence of this.”

Concealing the fact that Hizballah deliberately started the Second Lebanon War in July 2006 by conducting a cross-border raid and firing missiles at Israeli civilian communities, the report went on:

“Israel, which in 2006 fought a war with Hezbollah, has conducted air strikes in Syria aimed at stopping Iran supplying its ally with advanced weaponry. […]

In another speech on Thursday morning, the Hezbollah leader declared that the dozens of Israeli strikes aimed at preventing it from acquiring rockets with highly accurate targeting capacity had failed because it had “already been achieved”.

“No matter what you do to cut the route, the matter is over and the Resistance possesses precision and non-precision rockets and weapons capabilities.””

So as we see, the BBC is fully aware of the fact that since 2006 Iran has made considerable efforts to supply the terror group Hizballah with “advanced weaponry”. It would therefore obviously have been appropriate for the BBC to go on to inform its audience that such efforts breach more than one UN Security Council resolution, including that which brought the 2006 war to an end.

“At the end of the Second Lebanon War, the U.S. and France drafted the text of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was adopted unanimously on August 11, 2006, with Russian and Chinese support. Article 15 states that the resolution prohibits all UN member states from allowing their nationals to engage in “the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and related material of all types.” In short, Iranian weapons transfers to Hizbullah are a violation of a decision of the UN Security Council. Several years earlier, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559, which also called for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias on the soil of Lebanon.”

Given the BBC’s dismal record of reporting on violations of UN SC resolution 1701, it is unsurprising to see that once again audiences reading this article were denied key information that would enable them to “engage fully” with this issue.

Related Articles:

Reviewing BBC reporting of Hizballah’s violations of UNSC Resolution 1701

BBC failure to provide context in Hizballah weapons stories continues

BBC News yawns over another violation of UNSC resolution 1701

BBC’s Hizballah omissions continue to blight reporting

BBC WS ‘special report’ claims Israel attacked Hizballah in 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

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