Gmar Hatima Tova to all our readers marking the Day of Atonement.
BBC headlines for same story differ according to target audiences
While failing to accurately describe it as terrorism, the BBC News website’s English language report on the attack in Jerusalem on October 9th did make it clear to audiences that the perpetrator was a “Palestinian gunman” in both the headline and the opening paragraph.
In contrast, the headline selected for the BBC’s Arabic language report on the same incident failed to provide visitors to the BBC Arabic website with any information concerning the identity of the attacker.
The headline reads “Two Israelis killed and 6 wounded in shooting in Jerusalem”. The report’s opening paragraph reads:
“The Israeli police said that two Israelis were killed and six others injured as a result of shooting near the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.”
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Why is BBC Arabic feeding its audiences politicised terminology?
Major omissions in BBC News report on Jerusalem terror attack
On the morning of October 9th a terror attack in which two people were killed and five others were wounded took place in Jerusalem.
“The attack began as the assailant drove by police headquarters on Haim Bar-Lev Street, a main artery also served by the city’s light rail, and opened fire at a group of people, hitting one woman, police said.
He sped off toward Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau Street and shot a woman who was in her car, critically wounding her.
He continued toward the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Police officers on motorcycles from the city’s Special Patrol Unit saw the shooting and gave chase, police said.
The assailant then opened fire at the officers, who shot and “neutralized him,” police said.
During the shootout, one officer was critically wounded, while a second was lightly to moderately injured, police said.”
Some four hours after the incident took place the names of the two people killed in the attack – Levana Malihi and First Sgt Yosef Kirma – were released.
The BBC News website’s first report on the incident appeared on the Middle East page some three hours after the attack took place and following the announcement of the deaths of two of the wounded.
Some three hours after that – and around two hours after the names of those killed were released for publication – the article was amended.
Notably, the updated report omitted much of the relevant information which was already available at the time of its publication.
1) Once again, the victims were not identified or personalised.
2) The second shooting of the woman in her car was omitted.
3) The report stated that “[t]he police said the attacker was a Palestinian from East Jerusalem” but readers were not informed that the terrorist – from Silwan – held an Israeli identification card or of his apparent links to a banned Islamist group as reported by Ha’aretz and others.
“The assailant behind Sunday’s Jerusalem shooting attack that left two dead was set to begin a four-month prison sentence for assaulting a police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported on Sunday.
According to Palestinian sources, the assailant – a 39-year-old resident of East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood whose identity remains under gag order – was linked to the Mourabitoun, an outlawed Islamist group active at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Its members demonstrate on Temple Mount, known in Arabic as Haram al-Sharif, whenever Jews visit there.”
4) BBC audiences were not informed that Hamas claimed the terrorist as one of its members and – along with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – praised the attack. Neither were they told of the celebrations seen on the streets of Gaza and elsewhere after the attack. Similarly, BBC audiences learned nothing of the Fatah Jerusalem branch’s call for a general strike after the incident or of the glorification of the terrorist on Fatah’s social media accounts. The BBC’s report did however continue the policy of amplifying PLO messaging on the topic of terrorism against Israelis.
“Israel says Palestinian incitement has fuelled the attacks. The Palestinian leadership has blamed frustration rooted in decades of Israeli occupation.”
5) In line with BBC editorial policy, the words ‘terror’, ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorist’ do not appear anywhere in the BBC’s coverage of an attack in which a 60 year-old grandmother of six was gunned down in broad daylight at a city tram stop. Significantly, the morning after this report appeared the BBC did find it appropriate to use such terminology when reporting on an attack which did not take place – in Germany.
The following day – October 10th – further changes were made to the article. Over twenty-six hours after the incident had taken place the BBC noted the names of the victims and reported that Hamas had praised the attack and identified the terrorist as one of its members but the article’s additional omissions remained.
It is of course highly unlikely that members of the BBC’s audience who had read the report the previous day would have revisited it twenty or more hours later on the off-chance that it might have been updated.
The BBC’s coverage of this incident clearly fails to meet the remit of providing audiences with the full range of available information necessary for their understanding of both the specific story and its broader context. It does, however, provide yet another example of the double standards and lack of consistency at play in BBC reporting on terrorism.
BBC News’ bizarre ‘Newsbeat’ backgrounder on Syria
An article which appeared in the ‘Features’ section of the BBC News website’s Middle East page on October 5th was billed as follows:
The link leads to a backgrounder produced by BBC News for ‘Newsbeat‘ – and hence specifically tailored for younger audiences – which is titled “How the history books will remember Syria in 2016“.
The backgrounder – headed “Newsbeat Explains” – may well raise eyebrows both for what it does tell those ‘younger audiences’ and what it does not. No mention is made, for example, of the fact that the vast majority of casualties in the Syrian civil war have died at the hands of the Syrian regime or of issues such as the barrel bombs, the use of chemical weapons against civilians or the siege and starvation policy employed by Bashar al Assad. Apparently ‘Newsbeat’ does not consider those points worthy of the history books: a section headed “It’s hard to know exactly how many people have been killed in Syria” does not even try to inform audiences about such issues.
Readers are told that the root of the conflict in Syria goes back to “March 2003 when Britain and America and other countries decided to invade Iraq” and that the ‘Arab Spring’ can be attributed to the “economic crash of 2007/08”. The oppressive nature of the Syrian regime pre-March 2011 is severely whitewashed.
In a section concerning Syrian refugees audiences are told that Britain is characterised by “endemic racism” and in a section about the “international players” in Syria, readers are bizarrely informed that:
It is of course remarkable that the dubious notion that “Israeli security” is a prime factor behind US intervention in Syria (such as it is) was included in this BBC backgrounder without any concrete evidence being provided to back up that statement. Given that the information comes from an academic – Tim Jacoby – with a record of supporting anti-Israel boycotts and delegitimisation, the BBC’s amplification of that entirely unsupported claim obviously requires explanation.
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – July 2016
The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during July 2016 shows that throughout the month a total of 101 incidents took place: 77 in Judea & Samaria, 23 in Jerusalem and one incident originating from the Gaza Strip.
The agency recorded 73 attacks with petrol bombs, 22 of which occurred in Jerusalem. Six shooting attacks, 19 attacks using explosive devices, one vehicular attack and one stabbing attack took place in Judea & Samaria and Jerusalem. Two missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip in one attack.
One Israeli civilian – Rabbi Michael Mark – was murdered in Palestinian terror attacks during July. Seven people (four civilians and three members of the security forces) were wounded.
The shooting attack near Otniel on July 1st in which Rabbi Mark was murdered and three members of his family wounded did receive coverage, together with an earlier attempted stabbing attack in Hebron. The missile attack from the Gaza Strip later the same day was not reported on the BBC News website.
Among the other attacks which did not receive coverage on the BBC News website were an attempted stabbing attack near Ariel and a stoning attack on Route 60 on July 5th, a vehicular attack near Neve Daniel on July 6th, a shooting attack near Metzad in which a civilian was wounded on July 9th, a thwarted bomb attack on the Jerusalem light rail system on July 17th, a stabbing attack on Route 60 on July 18th and an attempted stabbing at Hawara on July 31st.
In conclusion, the BBC reported one fatal terror attack and one attempted attack throughout the month of July.
In comparison with its record during 2015, we see an improvement in BBC coverage of fatal terror attacks in Israel during the first seven months of 2016 with all those attacks having been reported. Overall, the BBC News website reported 3.9% of the terror attacks which took place between January and July 2016 inclusive and its record of reporting the missile attacks launched from the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year stood at 0% at the end of July 2016.
Related Articles:
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – June 2016
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – May 2016
Reviewing the BBC News website’s coverage of terror in Israel: October 2015 to March 2016
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – December 2015 and Q4 summary
BBC continues to ignore Hizballah terror activity in Israel
On October 6th indictments were filed against six residents of the village of Ghajar in northern Israel for terrorism related offences.
Ghajar
“The ringleader of the cell was named as Diab Kahmouz, a resident of Ghajar, whose father — an alleged drug dealer — fled to Lebanon in 2006 after being indicted for his aforementioned activities and is believed to have made the connection between his son and Hezbollah, according to the indictment. […]
According to investigators, Diab Kahmouz made contact with Hezbollah operatives through his father in late 2015. The terror group instructed him to carry out an attack in Haifa, though he decided instead to bomb a bus stop at a junction near the northern Arab city of Tur’an, where soldiers tend to gather on Sunday mornings en route to their army bases.
The cell planned to carry out the attack with explosive devices that had been smuggled across the border in May, but were unable to locate the bag holding the bombs after Diab hid it in a grove near Metulla in northern Israel. On July 30, an Israeli farmer found the explosives in a field and handed them over to police, who determined that the bombs had been manufactured in Lebanon, a police spokesperson said Thursday.”
This is of course not the first time this year that Hizballah’s attempts to set up cells intended to carry out terror attacks against Israelis have been thwarted by the Israeli security services. A similar story came to light in February of this year and two additional cells were discovered in August. None of those stories were covered by the BBC’s correspondents in Jerusalem.
While refraining from providing audiences with any serious coverage of the issue of efforts by established terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizballah to conscript Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, the BBC continues to frame terrorism against Israelis as the spontaneous product of “frustration rooted in decades of Israeli occupation” – in a manner eerily similar to the dictates of the PLO’s guidance for foreign journalists.
That narrative-dictated framing of course contributes to the BBC’s failure to meet its obligation to enhance audiences’ “awareness and understanding of international issues”.
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The news the BBC has to omit in order to keep up its narrative
Hizballah terror activity against Israelis again ignored by BBC News
Weekend long read
1) At the Tablet, Tony Badran asks “why hasn’t the [US] administration done anything about Syria, and won’t?”.
“Recently, portions of the strategic-communications façade erected by the administration have started to crumble, allowing interested analysts and members of the public to see the administration’s actual policy more clearly. In a recent interview, Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon revealed that in 2013, Iran told President Obama that if he were to strike the regime of Bashar Assad following the latter’s chemical-weapons attack, the Iranians would collapse the talks over their nuclear program. Obama canceled the strike, of course, and later reassured Iran that the United States would not touch Assad. Solomon’s reporting confirms a critical fact about Obama’s Iran and Syria policies: They are one and the same. Or, stated differently, Syria is part of the price for the president’s deal with Iran.”
2) The Times of Israel has an interesting interview with Professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel on the topic of antisemitism on the internet and in European discourse.
“A psychologist, linguist and professor of cognitive science at the Technical University of Berlin, Schwarz-Friesel is one of the most quoted experts on anti-Semitism in both international academic literature and the German media.
In her numerous publications she analyzes and exposes new manifestations of old anti-Semitic sentiments — disguised though they might be — employing much of the same Jew-hatred that has been shaping European discourse throughout the years, even when officially outlawed.
These analyses are evidence that recent anti-Israeli tropes demonizing the Jewish state are actually work-arounds of old anti-Semitic sentiments that have been with us for two millennia.”
3) The CST has produced a handy guide to definitions of antisemitism currently in use.
4) Rabbi Jonathan Sacks gave an address titled “The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism” at a conference at the European Parliament last month.
“Antisemitism is not about Jews. It is about anti-Semites. It is about people who cannot accept responsibility for their own failures and have instead to blame someone else. Historically, if you were a Christian at the time of the Crusades, or a German after the First World War, and saw that the world hadn’t turned out the way you believed it would, you blamed the Jews. That is what is happening today. And I cannot begin to say how dangerous it is. Not just to Jews but to everyone who values freedom, compassion and humanity.”
5) Adam Bienkov reports on the Momentum view of the British media – including the BBC.
“There must be a “socialist” solution to media ownership in the UK, Unite’s chief of staff insisted last night.
Speaking at a Momentum meeting on “Jeremy Corbyn and media bias,” Andrew Murray said there had to be a “change in ownership” away from the “tax exiles and ne’er-do-wells” who currently own most newspapers and broadcast media. […]
He added that any socialist solution to media bias against Corbyn must include the BBC.
“[There is] a narrow clique at the top of the BBC increasingly controlled and appointed by government,” which needed to be removed, he insisted.
Murray singled out the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg for criticism.” […]
A representative from the Corbyn-supporting ‘Media Response Unit’ called for Momentum to engage in mass complaints against the broadcaster.
“We’re building an army at Momentum so let’s use it,” he told the meeting.
BBC News amplifies inaccurate US claim of ‘new settlement’
On October 6th an article appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page under the headline “US ‘strongly condemns’ Israel over new settlement plan“. The report opened by telling readers that:
“The US has “strongly condemned” Israel for approving plans for new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.”
Later on readers were informed that:
“”The actions of the Israeli government in announcing this settlement undermine the pursuit of peace,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
State department spokesman Mark Toner said the new settlement would be “another step towards cementing a reality of perpetual occupation” that would “further call into question Israel’s commitment to achieving a negotiated peace”.” [all emphasis added]
Although the version of the story promoted by the US administration – and uncritically amplified by the BBC – is inaccurate, the corporation did not bother to inform readers in its own words of the fact that no “new settlement” has been announced or planned. Instead it promoted a ‘he said-she said’ account of the story without providing audiences with the background information necessary for their understanding of which of the two versions is correct.
“Its [Israel’s] foreign ministry said the new homes would be built within the area of an existing settlement.”
Some seven hours after its initial publication, the article was amended to include the following additional information:
“However, Israel’s foreign ministry said the new units did not constitute a “new settlement”.
“This housing will be built on state land in the existing settlement of Shilo and will not change its municipal boundary or geographic footprint,” a statement said.”
The 98 approved housing units – and not 300 as this article inaccurately suggests – are indeed intended to be built in a neighbourhood of Shilo, with the purpose of providing accommodation for residents of the unauthorised outpost of Amona which is to be evacuated according to a High Court ruling.
Notably, the BBC did not tell its readers that part of the story. Instead, audiences were left to reach their own conclusions as to whether a “new settlement” is to be constructed or not.
The impartiality of BBC reporting on the subject of construction in Israeli communities in Judea & Samaria and some areas of Jerusalem is already compromised because of the repeated promotion of a politicised narrative. The bizarre style of reporting seen in this latest article not only does nothing to persuade audiences that the BBC is committed to their going away with an accurate and impartial understanding of the story but also clearly fails to contribute to meeting the corporation’s remit of building understanding of international issues.
Related Articles:
BBC News amends misleading portrayal of Israeli construction
More BBC promotion of the ‘Peace Now’ narrative on construction
Gaza missile attack on Israeli town again ignored by BBC News
On the morning of October 5th sirens sounded in Sderot and the surrounding area as a missile was launched from the Gaza Strip. Narrowly missing a school and homes, the missile landed in a residential area of Sderot, causing damage but fortunately no physical injuries. Israel later responded with strikes on Hamas facilities in the Gaza Strip. A Salafist group based in the Gaza Strip claimed responsibility for the attack.
“The Islamic State-affiliated Ahfad al-Sahaba-Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis terrorist group took responsibility for the rocket launch in statements released in both Arabic and Hebrew.
“Oh you cowardly Jews: You don’t have safety in our land. [Former defense minister Moshe] Ya’alon, the failure at giving security. [Defense Minister Avigdor] Liberman to fail will be a certainty,” the salafist group said in its statement, in poorly translated Hebrew.
The attack against Israel was apparently a response to the Strip’s Hamas rulers arresting several members of the Salafist organization, according to the group’s statement.”
Once again, this missile attack on Israeli civilians received no coverage whatsoever on the BBC’s English language website. Visitors to the BBC Arabic website, on the other hand, found the incident – and primarily the Israeli response – covered in two separate reports on other topics: here and here.
The pattern of reporting whereby missile attacks from the Gaza Strip are not covered in the English language but Israel’s response to those attacks is reported in Arabic has been predominant since the end of the summer 2014 conflict. Since the beginning of 2016, just one missile attack has been – belatedly – reported by the BBC in the English language.
January 1st: BBC News ignores Gaza missile attacks, BBC Arabic reports Israeli response
January 24th: BBC News ignores Gaza missile attack again – in English
March 11th: BBC News continues to ignore missile attacks on Israelis – in English
March 15th: missile attack not reported.
May 6th: Patchy and selective BBC News reporting of Gaza border incidents
May 25th: BBC News fails to report another Gaza missile attack to English-speakers
July 1st: Another Gaza missile attack ignored by the BBC
August 21st: Response reported in Arabic, attack and response reported a day later in English.
September 14th: BBC ignores – in English – another projectile launched from Gaza
October 5th: Response reported in Arabic.
The BBC’s public purposes remit commits it to “giving insight into the way people live in other countries” and building “understanding of international issues”. The continuing appearance of this pattern of reporting obviously means that English-speaking audiences – including the corporation’s funding public – are still not receiving the information which would enable their understanding of how civilians in Sderot and other communities in the Western Negev live or enhance their comprehension of the issue of terrorism in the Gaza Strip.
BBC Trending presents Palestinian incitement as ‘narrative’
As has been documented here on countless occasions throughout the last year, the BBC’s coverage of the incitement and glorification of terrorism which fuelled the surge in Palestinian attacks that began in October 2015 – and of the role played by social media in particular – has done very little to meet the corporation’s public purpose remit of enhancing audience understanding of that issue.
Last month we noted that the BBC had refrained from reporting on the visit to Israel by Facebook executives for discussions on the incitement to violence frequently seen on its platform and so it was particularly interesting to see that visit employed in an item which appeared in the ‘BBC Trending’ programme on BBC World Service radio on October 2nd.
The item relates to the very brief closure of Facebook accounts associated with two Palestinian online news outlets last month. As the Times of Israel reported at the time:
“Facebook pages of a number of editors of Quds News Network were suspended for several hours last Friday, a campaigner said, in what the social media giant later called a “mistake.”
Pages linked to the Shehab News Agency were also disabled, an editor there said.
Quds has 5.2 million likes on Facebook, while Shehab has 6.35 million.
The Arabic versions of the online newspapers are supportive of the Hamas terror group and have been accused of incitement to violence against Israelis.
“The pages were removed in error and restored as soon as we were able to investigate,” Facebook said in a statement.
“Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We’re very sorry about this mistake.””
BBC Trending presenter Mike Wendling introduced that item (from 09:41 here) as follows:
“Our next story looks at the hashtag ‘Facebook Censors Palestine’ [#FBCensorsPalestine – Ed.] which appeared last weekend. Kate Lamble is still with us. Kate – explain.”
Lamble: “Yes the hashtag has now been used over 120 thousand times on Twitter this week and it’s all part of a campaign run by Palestinian journalists to highlight recent decisions by the social media giant. You see, Facebook plays a key role in the long-running conflict between Israel and Palestine, with both sides using it as a way to get their point across and drum up international support.”
Lamble – who clearly chooses to ignore the fact that the BBC Academy’s style guide instructs “you should not affix the name ‘Palestine’ to Gaza or the West Bank” – goes on:
“But over the last year, Israel has become more and more concerned that some people have been using the network to incite violence and glorify stabbing attacks, which have become more common.”
Listeners are not told that the violence has in no way been confined to “stabbing attacks” or who has been perpetrating the violence.
Wendling: “And Kate; Facebook specifically prohibits inciting violence. It’s right there in its terms and conditions – right – so if a post is brought to their attention and they think it violates those terms – it incites violence – they’ll delete it.”
Lamble: “Yeah and it’s that spotlight on online activity that really sets the scene for why this #FBCensorsPalestine campaign was started. Raja Abdulhaq is one of the co-founders of the Quds News Network which is based in Ramallah and has over 5 million likes. Last week they woke up to realise that their Facebook page had a bit of a problem.”
Abdulhaq: “So basically the online editors – at least four of them – their accounts were suspended. So once we started looking around we realised that at least two more networks had the same issue. There’s no way it’s a coincidence, especially after there is a big push from the Israeli government to shut down Palestinian inciting for violence online.”
Failing to clarify that the whole episode lasted no more than a few hours, Lamble goes on:
Lamble: “Now it’s worth saying that Facebook have since apologised and called their actions a mistake but that’s not enough for Raja; he’s still on the campaign trail because he’s convinced that Facebook have somehow agreed to help Israel target content on the platform that they’re unhappy with – including news providers.”
Wendling: “How does the evidence stack up? Is there anything to support that view?”
Lamble: “Well we do know that earlier this year two Israeli ministers announced that they were trying to pass laws to make it illegal to incite violence online and at the beginning of September – less than two weeks before the #FBCensorsPalestine campaign was launched – those same ministers met with Facebook officials.”
Wendling: “Hmm…I wonder what they discussed.”
Lamble: “Yes – well we approached the Israeli government for comment but they didn’t respond. Facebook also haven’t commented on what happened in those meetings and simply say they regularly meet with leaders across the world. But afterwards Israeli newspapers ran headlines claiming that the company had agreed to run joint groups with the country to tackle the issue. Now that obviously worried Palestinians who were concerned that Facebook’s approach would become more biased.”
Wendling: “OK, so I guess there’s this context here and I suppose a little bit of circumstantial evidence for what the Palestinian campaigners believe.”
Lamble: “Yeah – context but not really solid evidence that Facebook might be working with Israel. But if the suggestion is that Palestinian journalists had their accounts unfairly closed because of an over-zealous Israeli campaign against violent content, we have to look at what they were actually publishing. Here’s Raja again.”
Abdulhaq: “The problem here is that Israel and Facebook looking at this without contextualising. When we go to a family and when they talk about their right to resist the occupation, we’re not in any way endorsing or not endorsing. We’re just reporting what the people on the ground are saying.”
Quds News Network Facebook page – Photo credit: Times of Israel
Lamble: “I mean you say that you just report the facts but it’s not a neutral news service. At the very least it does use inflammatory language: it talks about martyrs, it puts Israel in quote marks, it published a cartoon of a woman in Arabic dress threatening a tank with a knife. Your cover photo is two people in Palestinian scarves throwing stones. Do you not understand at all that some of that content might contribute to this impression?”
From Quds News Network
Abdulhaq: “No, absolutely not. We are not in a position to do or to have call of action material. And when it comes to martyrdom, this is the terminology that is used in our culture. When you call a martyr it’s not a call to action that we’re telling people to go and kill yourself or kill somebody else. We’re just saying, based on our narrative.”
Interestingly, when one of Abdulhaq’s colleagues gave an interview to AP a year ago, he was very clear about the fact that his outlet aims to do far more than “just reporting”.
“The Quds News Network, which operates one of the most prominent Palestinian Facebook news sites, has about 3.7 million Facebook followers and says it relies on a network of some 300 stringers throughout Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. It breaks news so rapidly that it tends to beat out traditional Palestinian media outlets — even providing those outlets with video and photos.
The site says it is independent, but has a reputation for being affiliated with Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group. Another active Facebook site, run by the Shehab News Network, has about 4.2 million followers and is regarded by Palestinians as being linked with Hamas. Both militant groups oppose Israel’s right to exist, and have killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings and shootings over the years.
“Our message is twofold. Number one is to support the resistance . second, expose the aggressive acts of the Israeli occupation,” said Ahmed Yousef, 25, an editor at Quds News Network. Sitting in a baklava shop on a recent afternoon, he coordinated coverage with other editors in a Facebook chat group on his cell phone.
Yousef said his site does not encourage violence, but only reflects the attitude of the streets. “During this uprising we have to match the mood of the people,” he said.”
Lamble goes on to give listeners her take-away messaging:
“And this is really the problem: narrative. With two completely opposing views on events, what Israelis see as inciting violence, the Palestinians see as telling the truth and vice versa.”
Wendling: “So Facebook weighing in on the issue. I mean, you know, even if they managed to do it in a completely impartial manner it could be seen as biased by people on either side.”
Lamble: “Yeah, but if we try and figure out if Facebook are being impartial or not, there’s one other issue to take into account. As well as any potential governmental pressure, Facebook is also currently being sued by Shurat HaDin – an Israeli law centre which represents victims of terrorism – for not doing enough to curb online incitement posted by Palestinians.”
Wendling: “‘For not doing enough’…so I mean that’s exactly the opposite of what the Palestinians are accusing Facebook.”
Lamble: “Yeah. I did warn you [giggles] it was slightly complicated. Here’s Nitsana Darshan-Leitner who’s involved in that case.”
Darshan-Leitner: “We basically have two lawsuits against Facebook. One is an injunction: asking the court to compel Facebook to delete all pages that call to kill Jews or incitement to acts of terrorism against Israelis and Jews. The other lawsuit is a monetary lawsuit for $1 bn against Facebook for aiding and abetting terrorism. Facebook is allowing Hamas and other terror organisations to use their platform to spread the ideology and to fundraise and the Anti-terrorism Act does not allow any American company to provide them any type of material support.”
Apparently uninterested in the fact that proscribed terror groups are using Facebook, Lamble changes the subject to introduce false equivalence:
“Do you accept that content which incites violence also comes from Israelis against Palestinians and a lot of that is currently present online?”
Darshan-Leitner: “I’m sure there are calls that call to kill Palestinians. We ourselves did an experiment where we created two identical pages: one page called to kill Palestinians and the other called to kill Israelis. And after two days we asked for Facebook to take both pages down. Facebook immediately took down the page that called to kill Palestinians but left the page that called to kill Israelis standing.”
Lamble: “But are you claiming that those calls against Palestinians and against Israelis are being treated differently?”
Darshan-Leitner: “Absolutely – hundred percent.”
Wendling: “So there we have an equally passionate claim that Facebook are discriminating – this time against Israelis.”
Lamble: “And for what it’s worth, Facebook say both of the pages Nitsana described were eventually taken down and I’ve read about almost an exact same experiment being repeated with the opposite result.”
Wendling: “OK. [laughs] So is Facebook just stuck in the middle of these two warring factions, being attacked from all sides? Or have they opened themselves up to claims that they might have been irresponsible in meeting Israeli ministers but not the Palestinian authorities who tackle online hate speech?”
That latter statement obviously exposes the dire level of Wendling’s understanding of the issue on which he is supposedly informing BBC audiences. There are of course no “Palestinian authorities who tackle online hate speech” and had the BBC done a better job of reporting on incitement and glorification of terrorism throughout the past year, he would perhaps know that official Palestinian bodies – including the PA and Fatah – have themselves regularly used Facebook and other social media platforms (as well as more traditional outlets) to incite violence and glorify acts of terrorism.
Lamble closes the item:
“Well at the moment it seems like Facebook are walking a very thin tightrope of neutrality but they’re trying to please everyone. They’re meeting with the Israeli government to show that they’re listening to their concerns and they’ve also told us they want Palestinians to know their voices will be as safe on Facebook as every other community. It obviously depends where you stand on the political spectrum when deciding whether that’s a successful balancing act.”
Clearly this item once again does little to help BBC audiences understand the gravity of the issue of Palestinian incitement and indeed actively hinders that aim by misleadingly presenting the subject as being about “narrative” and portraying efforts to combat the spread of incitement as “bias”. It does however provide amplification for a campaign run by some Palestinians (apparently with connections to terror groups and ideologies which BBC Trending was obviously not interested in investigating) which is clearly designed to hamper Facebook’s efforts to clamp down on the incitement that they and others have long spread unhindered.
Related Articles:
Poor BBC reporting on Palestinian incitement again mars audience understanding
BBC still portraying incitement as an ‘Israel says’ story
Facebook Allows Hamas News Agency to Operate Freely, But What about The Algemeiner? (CAMERA)
