Edited out: the election analysis the BBC scrapped

As described in a previous article, the BBC’s coverage of the 2013 Israeli election campaign up until the commencement of polling was a one-dimensional affair which focused upon creating an impression of a country veering to the political far-Right and turning its collective back on the ‘peace process’. 

Once voting began, Jon Donnison – brought in from Ramallah for the occasion – reported from one Jerusalem polling station on January 22nd in an article which appeared in the Middle East section of the BBC News website. 

Donnison 22 1Like all the previous BBC coverage, Donnison’s report focused on the Likud and ‘Jewish Home’ parties, once again tapping into the much-promoted theme whereby – bizarrely – ‘peace in the Middle East’ is not only defined solely in terms of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also suggesting  that it depends entirely upon one factor in the equation:

“And as Israel goes to the polls, that does not bode well for those hoping for peace in the Middle East any time soon.”

Donnison’s report also included an interview with the Jerusalem Post’s chief political correspondent Gil Hoffman. Or at least, parts of an interview. For – as Hoffman later explained on Twitter – it seems that some things said in that interview just did not fit in with the BBC agenda. 

Tweet Gil Hoffman

For those interested in what Gil Hoffman might have had to say – given the chance – here is a recent article in which he explains the myth of the rightward shift. 

But then, a very curious thing happened. Some hours later, Donnison’s report disappeared and – on the same URL and with the same title and synopsis  – a completely different one by Wyre Davies appeared.

version 2 'Netanyahu seeks re-election'

 Hmm…

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