BBC’s online Fatah profile shown yet again to be inaccurate

The BBC continues to avoid correcting erroneous claims.

The BBC’s online profile of the “Fatah Palestinian movement” was last updated over eight years ago in June 2011 according to its date stamp.

The profile rightly notes that Fatah is a:

“Major force within the PLO umbrella group and its interim governing body, the Palestinian Authority”

However, as has been noted here in the past, among the additional information provided to BBC audiences in that profile are the following statements: [emphasis added]

Secular, nationalist movement with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state”

“Under Arafat’s leadership, the group originally promoted an armed struggle against Israel to create a Palestinian state. But it later recognised Israel’s right to exist, and its leaders have led Palestinian peace talks aimed at reaching a two-state solution.”

“With international pressure mounting, Fatah – though notably not the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – signed a declaration rejecting attacks on civilians in Israel and committing themselves to peace and co-existence.”

Palestinian Media Watch reports on activities at a children’s summer camp organised by the Fatah-dominated PLO:

“A branch of Fatah’s Shabiba youth movement has produced a video that shows “how Fatah teaches its children loyalty to the Martyrs’ blood” at a summer camp for Palestinian kids, which was organized by the PLO Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs. 

In the video, children are chanting a song honoring several arch-terrorists who murdered hundreds, asking God to “have mercy” on former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein who massacred hundreds, former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and his deputy Abu Jihad, founder of the Hamas terror organization Ahmed Yassin, and head of the Black September terror organization Abu Iyad – all of whom orchestrated numerous terror attacks in which hundreds were murdered. The children are wearing T-shirts with the logo of the PLO Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs and the logo of the 2019 Palestinian summer camps.”

PMW also reports that at least two of the summer camps run by the PLO this year are named after terrorists.

“Text on sign: “Under the auspices of the [PLO] Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs the Nahdat Bint Al-Rif Charity Association is running the children’s summer camp named after Omar Abu Laila under the slogan ‘The home is ours and Jerusalem is ours’.”

A political party which controls the Palestinian Authority education ministry and dominates an organisation that organises children’s summer camps glorifying violence and terrorism has obviously not ‘rejected’ attacks on Israeli civilians or ‘committed’ itself to “peace and co-existence”.

However, not only has the BBC for years refrained from amending those clearly unrealistic claims in its Fatah profile, it continues to avoid reporting cases of blatant glorification of terrorism by the PA’s dominant party.  

Related Articles:

Inaccuracy in BBC’s Fatah profile exposed

More Fatah glorification of terrorism ignored by the BBC

 

 

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