BBC interest in Israeli politicians’ legal cases has its limits

Not for the first time the BBC ignores a story about a legal case and a particular political party.

As we know from our monthly overviews of reporting on Israel and the Palestinians, the BBC News website is rather fond of stories about criminal/legal cases in Israel – especially if they involve Israeli politicians or public figures.

February 28

Gonen Segev: Israel ex-minister admits spying for Iran

Israel police investigate ‘sex-for-judgeships’ allegations

Netanyahu and the allegations of corruption (discussed here)

Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel PM faces corruption charges (discussed here)

Benjamin Netanyahu: What are the corruption allegations? (discussed here)

Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel PM faces corruption charges (discussed here)

Netanyahu charges: Is Israel PM in more trouble now than ever before? (discussed here)

Sara Netanyahu: Israeli PM’s wife ‘agrees plea bargain’

Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara admits misusing public funds (discussed here)

By contrast, since the beginning of the year visitors to the BBC News website have seen just one report about a possible criminal/legal case in the Gaza Strip (not involving politicians) and just one report about Palestinian Authority politicians (not involving a legal case).

Interestingly, the BBC is apparently rather less interested in potential indictments when they involve an Arab Israeli political party, even though it has in the past repeatedly given a platform to one of the people involved.

“Former lawmaker Haneen Zoabi and the Arab party Balad will be indicted pending a hearing for forgery and fraud relating to their reports on campaign funding filed to the state comptroller, the attorney general and state prosecutor announced Thursday. 

Balad is suspected of having received from abroad some three million shekels ($862,650) and using the funds while pretending that the money had come in as donations. The party rejected the accusations, claiming they were part of “political persecution.” […]

Zoabi and the others are suspected of aggravated fraud, attempted fraud, money laundering, aggravated forgery, using a forged document and forging corporate records.  […]

Party officials deposited around 2.4 million shekels ($690,000) in the party bank account before the 2013 general election.  In a financial report provided to the state comptroller in February 2016, the funds were described as donations. The report was accompanied by 1,300 receipts, found by police investigation to be forged, and a list of donors, also found to be forged, according to the prosecution.”

Despite its usually lively interest in legal cases and criminal investigations involving Israeli politicians and public figures and although this story about Balad broke last week, the BBC News website (once again) has to date not found it at all newsworthy.

Related Articles:

The prison story from Israel the BBC chose to report – and one it didn’t

Summary of BBC News website portrayal of Israel and the Palestinians – July 2019

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