As followers of BBC Watch no doubt recall, on Aug. 15th, BBC Two presenter Victoria Derbyshireinterviewed two British Jews, Mark Lewis and his partner Mandy Blumenthal, to discuss their view that antisemitism in the UK has become so bad that they no longer felt safe living there, and had decided to emigrate to Israel.
As we noted at the time, the interview was so biased – and at times hostile – that the BBC presenter could have been mistaken for a Jeremy Corbyn spokesperson, as she spouted off meaningless Labour talking points, used misleading statistics attempting to downplay antisemitism and seemed convinced that the couple was grossly exaggerating their concerns – despite death threats and other forms of abuse they’ve experienced.
Derbyshire even at one point – in an attempt to discredit their claims – accused Lewis and Blumenthal of belonging to a non-existent Zionist political party in the UK.
Yesterday, @GasherJew, a twitter account that’s been doing extremely important work exposing antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, tweeted the following thread containing an A-Z of examples of Labour antisemitism.
Many of these abhorrent racists have been let off by Labour, are free to peddle their revolting views about Jews to the public.
— Gnasher Jew #LabourAntisemitism (@GnasherJew) October 7, 2018
The list is especially useful for journalists and pro-Corbyn activists who deny that antisemitism is a serious issue in the party, or suggest that the problem has been greatly exaggerated by the British Jewish community. (See web version of the twitter thread here)
You don’t need to be a journalist, Mid-East analyst or expert of any kind to come up with a list of practical steps ‘protesters’ participating in the Hamas organised Great Return March can take to save Palestinian lives.
Stop throwing grenades and other explosive devices at soldiers on the border.
Stop attempting to damage the security fence and infiltrate into Israel in order to kill Jews.
We don’t mean to be cheeky, but to introduce a larger point: that the Guardian’s coverage of the region is defined, as much as any other factor, by the denial of Palestinian agency, with reports invariably attributing Gaza’s woes to some sort of act of nature or, much more often, Israeli malevolence.
Reports on Palestinian deaths and injuries during the Gaza border riots which have taken place since March 31st are a case in point, with their correspondents at pains to obfuscate Palestinian responsibility for initiating the deadly confrontations with Israeli soldiers.
Arecent article(Two children among seven people shot dead by Israel, say officials, Sept. 29)by the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Oliver Holmes, on the most recent border riots, noted an alternative idea for saving lives, one that doesn’t rely our ‘conventional wisdom’.
Here’s the relevant sentence:
During the past two weeks, the Hamas-led Friday rallies have grown in size and also moved to evenings and night-time, a move protesters say is to save lives as people can move under the cover of darkness. Piles of tyres have also been burnt to obscure the snipers’s vision.
Reports elsewhere note that Palestinians have called this new strategy – which involves the usual riot tactics, such as throwing incendiary devices towards soldiers (and sound bombs that can be heard in nearby Israeli communities), but doing them when it’s dark, “night confusion units”.
By “saving lives”, the ‘protester’ of course was referring to the hope that, by operating under the cover of darkness, they could engage in violent actions on the border with greater impunity.
However, a report in The National included a quote by a Israeli military official who said “the night protests do not pose a new challenge” given the night vision equipment used by soldiers. So, it seems, despite the Palestinian claim uncritically cited in the Guardian, the new tactic of engaging in violence against soldiers or attempting to infiltrate the border at nightwill not “save lives”.
But, beyond the narrow claim regarding whether such new tactics will save lives, it’s remarkable that reporters like Holmes never seem interested in exploring the more vital questions concerning the impact of a Palestinian culture which encourages civilians – includingyoung children – into situations likely to result in serious injury or death.
As former AP Jerusalem correspondent Matti Friedman wrote in his landmark 2014 expose on institutional anti-Israel media bias and the liberal racism of low expectations, “Palestinians are not taken seriously as agents of their own fate.” “The story mandates”, Friedman added, “that they exist as passive victims” of Israel, the only party that matters.
This failure of media outlets such as the Guardian to recognize that Palestinians are more than just victims, and have the capacity to resist such destructive behavior, continues to deny news consumers an accurate understanding of the factors driving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
1) The Times of Israel reports on a story ignored by the BBC.
“Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad selected a new leader for the first time in more than 20 years Thursday, a senior official said, but is likely to remain close to Iran.
Syria-based Ziad al-Nakhala will take over as the movement’s secretary general from Ramadan Shalah, who has been suffering from serious health issues for months, the official said on condition of anonymity. […]
Nakhala, who was born in Gaza in 1953, is close to both Iran and Lebanese terror group Hezbollah. He had been the deputy leader to Shalah since the 1990s.”
2) The ITIC has published a report about Palestinian calls to boycott the upcoming municipal elections in Jerusalem.
“On October 30, 2018, the municipal elections in Jerusalem are to take place. There are about 200,000 residents in the city having the right to vote for the municipality, who since 1967 have boycotted the local elections. Senior Palestinian figures, including clerics, are trying to prevent the residents’ participation in the elections: Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Authority, has issued a fatwa (religious ruling) banning the participation in the municipal elections or running for mayor. Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher, announced that it is forbidden to take part in the elections because Jerusalem is an “occupied city” and the participation of East Jerusalem residents in the elections would mean “recognizing the legitimacy of the occupation.” Saeb Erekat, chief of the PLO’s Executive Committee, announced that the Executive Committee is opposed to giving legitimacy to the Israeli government’s policy towards the Arab residents and therefore the elections must be boycotted.”
3) At Tablet magazine, Emily Benedek discusses ties between international aid organisations and terrorist groups.
“At the beginning of August, a Palestinian man opened fire on IDF soldiers at the Gaza boundary, threw an incendiary device, and attempted to breach the fence. He was killed by return fire. What made his act stand out was that the man, Hani al-Majdalawi, was employed as a nurse with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), one of the world’s best-known international aid organizations. Al-Majdalawi had previously been employed by both Oxfam Great Britain and the American Friends Service Committee, two of the West’s oldest NGOs. Although he was not dressed as a medical provider at the time of his attack, his act added to mounting concern that NGOs operating in the Middle East are increasingly vulnerable to infiltration by terrorists, and susceptible to being co-opted by extremist ideologies.”
4) PMW reports on the continuing Palestinian Authority and Fatah failure to recognise Israel.
“For more than two decades, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that neither the PA nor Fatah recognize Israel when addressing their own people. In fact, the opposite is true. Both do their utmost to convince Palestinians that all of Israel was, is, and will remain “Palestine.”
It is not surprising that Palestinians deny Israel’s existence, since the message that all of Israel is “Palestine” comes from the top. The Palestinian Authority Minister of Education Sabri Saidam recently posed holding a sketch of the PA’s map of “Palestine” that likewise presents all of Israel as “Palestine” at an event with NGOs working with the education sector.”
Readers based in the UK may be interested in attending an event organised by UK Lawyers for Israel which is to be held in North-West London on October 30th.
“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.
Back in July the BBC published a number of items on different platforms which clearly communicated to audiences what they should think about the Nation State law passed by the Knesset that month after seven years of deliberation.
Two months later the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Tom Bateman returned to that topic in two reports – mixing in a partially told, unrelated story from an Israeli town with a name he could not be bothered to learn to pronounce properly.
On September 19th viewers of the BBC Two programme ‘Newsnight‘ saw a filmed report by Bateman.
On September 22nd listeners to ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ on BBC Radio 4 heard an audio version (from 06:24 here) of the same report which was introduced by presenter Kate Adie at the beginning of the programme as follows: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Adie: “Today we’re in Israel on the hunt for the finest falafel while hearing what Arab and Jewish Israelis think of the controversial new law which characterises the country as principally a Jewish state.”
Adie’s introduction to the item itself included overt signposting.
Adie: “In July Israel’s parliament – the Knesset – narrowly voted in favour of a new Nation State law. It promotes Israel’s Jewish character and has been celebrated by religious nationalists, among other supporters, and not just within Israel itself but in the USA and Europe. It’s also sparked condemnation at home and internationally. Among its harshest critics have been the country’s nearly 2 million Arab-Israeli citizens who say it underlines their second class status, as Tom Bateman’s been finding out.”
Bateman’s report began in a falafel shop in Afula and listeners were told that he has “set out to gauge reactions to one of Israel’s most controversial new laws” before Bateman introduced his linkage of a local story to his main agenda.
Bateman: “My lunch companion wants to tell me about that. This is the world’s only Jewish state says Ilan Vaknin, a local lawyer turned mayoral candidate. Israel is surrounded by Arab nations and needs protecting, he asserts. He supports the new Nation State law. The legislation is an emblem for the Israeli Right, championed by Benjamin Netanyahu – a prime minister with an eye on elections next year, trying not to be outflanked by more hardline nationalists in his coalition.”
Bateman went on to give a particular view of the legislation.
Bateman: “The single-page law is stacked with symbols of Jewish sovereignty. It states that Jews have the unique right to national self-determination in Israel. That what it calls Jewish settlement is a national value. That Hebrew is the state’s official language – a statement seen as downgrading Arabic. But what of the central complaint from the law’s many critics, I ask, that it shreds Israel’s founding pledge of equality for all the inhabitants regardless of their religion or race?”
Given that account, uninformed listeners could of course be forgiven for reaching the conclusion that Jewish self-determination in Israel is an innovation that first appeared in the Nation State law. What Bateman refers to as “Israel’s founding pledge” is of course the Declaration of Independence which does indeed pledge “equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” but also – he refrains from clarifying – clearly defines Israel as “a Jewish state”.
Bateman continued:
Bateman: “Ilan Vaknin says that the Jewish people in Israel must safeguard their land. There has certainly been a struggle among the people of Afula. When 48 Arab-Israeli families tried to buy plots of land on the edge of this Jewish majority town, there were protests by Jewish residents. Mr Vaknin acted for those who wanted to stop the sales. He claimed the Arab families had illegally coordinated bids. The courts ultimately threw out much of that argument and most of the sales went ahead. Many such land disputes elsewhere have not always gone the way of Arab citizens. Afula’s story seemed to echo a desire in the Nation State law to assert Jewish identity.”
Presuming to tell audiences what Israel “is supposed to stand for”, in his filmed report Bateman described the same story thus:
Bateman: “An empty space to be filled – but by whom? There has been a struggle among the people of Afula. What should this town in northern Israel look like? Who should live here? From whose past should it seek its character? Afula isn’t a story of troops and teargas filling the foreign news but a less visible confrontation between Jews and Arabs that goes to the heart of what the State of Israel is supposed to stand for. Ilan Vaknin wants to be the mayor. The lawyer told me how he tried to stop the sale of land to nearly 50 Arab families in this majority Jewish town. The dispute, which started well before the row over Israel’s new Nation State law, provides an example of the tensions that led to the law’s drafting and why its supporters think Israel’s Jewish character needs protecting. […] He [Vaknin] fought the sale of this land to Arab-Israeli families, saying they illegally coordinated bids But, after two years, Israel’s High Court allowed most of the sales to go ahead.”
The only Israeli politician mentioned by Bateman in these two reports is the current prime minister and so BBC audiences could be forgiven for concluding that it was he who proposed the Nation State law. In fact, the legislation was originally proposed in 2011 by Avi Dichter – who was at the time a member of the Kadima party – together with 39 other MKs. In contrast to the impression given by Bateman, the Afula building plots story began in late 2015.
While some of those who demonstrated against the sale of plots to 48 families from Arab villages in the district may have had racist motives, there are relevant parts of the story that Bateman did not bother to tell BBC audiences – not least the fact that the full complement of tenders in the proposed new neighbourhood was won by Arab applicants.
“The protesters claimed that the winning tender applicants may have coordinated their bids to ensure the neighborhood is populated mainly by Arab residents. They also charged that the tenders were poorly publicized within the city, and only announced in two local newspapers.
Many of the protesters have previously expressed their opposition to having an all-Arab neighborhood in the city.
The tender was run by the Israel Land Administration, which accepted bids on almost 50 plots for homes in a planned community next to the Afula Illit neighborhood. The results, published last month, showed that none of the plots had been won by current residents of Afula and all had been awarded to residents of Arab villages in the area.”
“Court president Justice Avraham Avraham said in his decision that the 48 Arab families violated housing tender rules by coordinating their bids on several of the 50 lots for homes in a planned neighborhood next to the Afula Illit neighborhood in an effort to fix prices for the homes.
“The coordination between bidders severely damages the principle of equality,” Avraham said in his decision. “The bidders joined forces to coordinate their proposed prices in an effort to unfairly divide the market among themselves.””
In August 2017 the High Court found that while a bidding group which had won ten of the 27 available plots had indeed coordinated bids, the other applicants had not. The court ruled that, rather than cancelling all the tenders as the Nazareth court had ruled, only the tenders of those shown to have coordinated bids would be cancelled.
While those parts of the story are missing from Bateman’s account, he did make sure to tell his radio audience of statements made by another interviewee – Ghayadad Zoabi.
Bateman: “She says when Jewish protests took place against families like hers buying plots in Afula the sense of division felt overwhelming. She worries for her children who she fears have harder days to come. As long as the Right-wing controls Israel, she claims, it is heading for fanaticism. She believes the Nation State law sends a message to people like her that they are citizens second to Jews.”
And that of course is the agenda behind Bateman’s sudden interest in a local story that the BBC has ignored for nearly three years. Despite the fact that Arab-Israelis won tenders organised by a government agency and the 63% of bidders who were shown not to have coordinated bids had their tenders upheld in Israel’s High Court, The BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent still has a tale of “fanaticism” to tell about just one of the 22% of the world’s countries – including the UK – that have a religion enshrined in their constitution or basic law.
Since the beginning of this year BBC audiences have seen extensive coverage of the topic of US aid donations to the Palestinians and since the end of August items relating to the US administration’s decision to cease funding UNRWA have frequently featured on BBC platforms.
In contrast, visitors to the BBC News website have not seen any coverage whatsoever of a story which broke on October 1st and was covered by many local and international media outlets.
“The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had evacuated 10 of its international senior employees from Gaza to Israel on Monday, after they were threatened and harassed by UNRWA’s disgruntled local Palestinian staff following the agency’s announcement to cut more than 250 jobs.
The agency’s senior officials were rescued and transferred to Israeli territory via the Erez crossing—which remained closed throughout the Jewish holidays but was re-opened by the Israeli security officials following an official request from UNRWA.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories issued an official statement, confirming the incident.
“A number of foreign UNRWA employees have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip to Israel. This is due to the tensions as a result of the financial crisis UNRWA is facing and subsequent concern for the safety of its foreign staff,” stressed the statement.
“The Hamas terrorist organization did not protect the agency’s staff from the violence directed against them,” the statement concluded.”
UNRWA put out a statement of its own (which it is difficult to believe the BBC did not receive) that interestingly does not mention Hamas by name but “calls upon the local authorities” to protect its staff.
Despite its record of covering stories about UNRWA operations in the Gaza Strip very generously, remarkably the BBC did not find a story about the agency’s foreign employees being threatened by local residents remotely newsworthy.
“With nearly two million people living in miserable conditions in Gaza, the Israeli blockade has taken its toll on mental health there. Against the backdrop of the border clashes earlier this year this film goes deep inside the minds of the people of Gaza to explore the mental health issues affecting many there.”
Produced by Christine Garabedian of BBC Arabic, the film is remarkable for the fact that it fails to mention the all-important context of Hamas terrorism even once – despite opening by telling viewers that:
“Gaza has been under a strict blockade for eleven years. Israel and Egypt say that the blockade is in place for their security.”
Garabedian, however, failed to provide audiences with the information which would help them understand why “Israel and Egypt say” such a thing. Moreover, audiences repeatedly heard various interviewees use Hamas-preferred terminology as they referred to a non-existent “siege” of the Gaza Strip.
Viewers were also told that the film was made “between the 30th March and 15th May 2018 during the ‘Great March of Return’ protests” but Garabedian failed to provide any background to inform audiences who organised that violent rioting and why.
Moreover, despite viewers being told that “protesters were demanding the right to return to what is now Israel and calling for an end to the blockade”, they were not informed that the aim of the so-called ‘right of return’ is to eliminate the Jewish state.
And so what BBC audiences saw in this film is twenty-three minutes of unverifiable, completely context-free stories told by inadequately identified interviewees and accompanied by ominous music and carefully selected imagery such as shots of birdcages.
Amazingly, that exercise in blatantly one-sided politicised messaging which contributes nothing to audience understanding of what lies behind the picture Garabedian chose to paint is classified by the BBC as a ‘documentary‘.
“Israel has tightened restrictions on its only cargo crossing with the Gaza Strip, after Palestinians carried out fresh attacks with incendiary balloons.
No fuel will enter through Kerem Shalom until Sunday, but food and medicine deliveries will still be permitted.” [emphasis added]
However in contrast, the caption to a photograph featured later on in the report and a quote from a political NGO informed BBC audiences of “the closure of Kerem Shalom” and the “shutting down of Gaza’s main lifeline”.
BBC Watch submitted a complaint concerning those inaccurate representations of the situation, pointing out that – as the BBC obviously was aware – the Kerem Shalom crossing had not been closed or shut down.
On July 26th we received a response from BBC Complaints informing us that it would take more time to reply. On August 14th we received another response stating that BBC Complaints had not been able to reply within the accepted time-frame and referring us to OFCOM. On September 18th we received an additional response.
“Thank you for getting in touch about our article reporting that Israel has tightened restrictions on its only cargo crossing with the Gaza Strip, after Palestinians carried out fresh attacks with incendiary balloons (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44858637) and please accept our apologies for the long and regrettable delay in our response.
To hopefully address your complaint now, after considering your points in more detail we have amended the caption of the third photo to now explain that:
An Israeli NGO said the measures could have disastrous implications for Gazans
However we do not consider that the paragraph which refers to a statement from Israeli non-governmental organisation Gisha needs changed for the reasons you’ve outlined.
In particular they do not say that the crossing has been “shut down” but refer to the “shutting down of Gaza’s main lifeline…” which implies ongoing activity in a story about the tightening of restrictions.”
Apparently BBC Complaints would have us believe that audiences would not understand the phrase “shutting down” as meaning closing or ceasing operations.
Readers may recall that on August 15th the BBC News website published an article headlined “Palestinian mail blocked by Israel arrives eight years late” which – as noted here at the time – failed to provide readers with the full story.
Original headline
“As we see, readers were by no means provided with the full background to this story (not least the relevant issue of the refusal by Arab countries to use the existing system) and the BBC’s report amplified inaccurate claims from Palestinian Authority Communications Minister regarding the 2016 memorandum of understanding which mistakenly led audiences to believe that Israel is exclusively to blame for the fact that the delivery of items including “even a wheelchair” was delayed.”
Five days after the report’s initial appearance, the BBC News website added a paragraph and a footnote:
“Update 20 August 2018: The article has been updated to make reference to the 2008 postal agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”
Meanwhile, Mr Stephen Franklin had submitted a complaint concerning the inaccurate claim in the report’s headline that Israel had “blocked” Palestinian mail. The initial response to that complaint, received on August 22nd, stated:
Mr Franklin submitted a second complaint, pointing out that the arrangements concerning postal services to the Palestinian Authority were not “imposed” but had actually been agreed within the framework of the Oslo Accords and that the delayed mail was held in Jordan rather than Israel.
Over a month later, on September 26th, Mr Franklin received another response.
Obviously the continuing absence of a dedicated corrections page on the BBC News website means that those who read the original version this article on August 15th remain unaware of the significant changes subsequently made.
