BBC WS presenter Razia Iqbal amplifies Palestinian claims of ‘genocide’ in Gaza

Readers no doubt recall that we recently documented two additional cases in which the BBC’s supposed commitment to accurate and impartial reporting was yet again trumped by the corporation’s self-conscription to the provision of publicity for campaigners using ‘lawfare’ against Israel.

In both those cases – one of which appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme and the other on the BBC News website – the BBC amplified baseless Palestinian claims that ‘war crimes’ and even ‘genocide’ were carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip and column space and air-time were allotted to the amplification of the following unfounded accusations made by BBC regular Mustafa Barghouti.

“Targeting civilians and targeting children and killing them. Indiscriminate destruction of very wide areas as well as using forbidden weapons like depleted uranium and other weapons that include…eh…cancerogenous [sic – carcinogenic – Ed.] materials. One very important point here was the unjustified massive destruction of whole neighbourhoods in Gaza.”

In addition, both items amplified inaccurate claims from Sarit Michaeli of the political NGO B’Tselem which were clearly not fact-checked by the BBC before either of Kevin Connolly’s reports were publicized.

But – apparently not content with already having misled BBC audiences twice – the audio version of Connolly’s inaccurate and partial report as it previously appeared on Radio 4 was once again amplified five days later in two separate editions of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ on October 13th.Newshour 13 10 14

Both editions of the programme were presented by Razia Iqbal. The earlier version is available here with the relevant segment beginning at 17:30 and the later version here from 38:45.

Iqbal introduced the item in both programmes as follows:

“Now you may have heard some of our coverage yesterday on the conference in Cairo on Gaza. At the conference the Egyptian president said reconstruction after the devastating summer war between Israel and Hamas depended on a permanent calm. Whilst the big weapons of war are quiet now, the Palestinians accuse Israel of genocide while Israel sees its armed forces as the most moral in the world. Previous rounds of fighting produced controversial war crimes investigations and it is likely that this year’s fighting will be no different. Our Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly has been listening as each side made its case.” [emphasis added]

There is, of course, a detailed definition of genocide to which Razia Iqbal could have referred before amplifying that very serious – yet clearly baseless – accusation. And if that did not suffice, Ms Iqbal could have reminded herself of the very obvious fact that a group carrying out genocide does not provide its intended targets with thousands of truckloads of food and humanitarian aid and millions of liters of fuel even as its own population is being attacked by terrorists. It does not provide those same intended targets with medical care in its own hospitals and it does not supply them with electricity or carry out repairs to their infrastructure. And of course most obviously, a group aspiring to carry out genocide does not warn people where fighting is going to take place days in advance so that they can evacuate themselves to safety.

We have previously documented here the fact that less than 24 hours after the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, the BBC already rolled out a policy of publicising groundless claims of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ made by Hamas terrorists and their enablers in various NGOs involved in ‘lawfare‘.

As we see in the vigorous promotion of Connolly’s report and the inaccurate introductions to it, the politically motivated quest to establish a pernicious narrative in the minds of BBC audiences – regardless of the facts – continues across a range of BBC platforms, underscoring the absurdity of editorial guidelines on accuracy and impartiality which clearly do nothing to dissuade  BBC employees from apparently believing that they can get away with such blatant defamation and delegitimisation.

Twitter:

@BBCNewshour  @raziaiqbal  

Related Articles:

Documenting the BBC contribution to political warfare against Israel

Documenting the BBC contribution to political warfare against Israel – part two

Documenting the BBC contribution to political warfare against Israel – part three

 

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