As was mentioned in an earlier post, the BBC News website’s live page reporting on the terror attack at the Kehilat Ya’akov Synagogue in Jerusalem on November 18th claimed to be able to provide audiences with the answer to the question “what caused the attack?”.
Readers were directed to a ninety second video titled “Synagogue attack: Months of tension and revenge attacks” which was also promoted separately on the BBC News website as well as appearing as a link titled “Unrest explained” in at least three of the written articles appearing on that day.
The synopsis to the video reads as follows:
“Four Israelis have been killed and eight injured as two men armed with a pistol and meat cleavers attacked a West Jerusalem synagogue, police say.
The attackers – Palestinians from East Jerusalem – were shot dead.
The deadly attack comes after months of unrest and apparent revenge killings, as BBC News explains.”
It has not been updated to reflect the fact that Master Sgt Zidan Saif also died later in the day of injuries he sustained whilst responding to the terror attack, bringing the number of Israeli dead to five.
As we see, the synopsis and the title both inform BBC audiences that “apparent revenge killings” (note the plural) have been taking place for “months”. In fact there was one murder – that of Muhammed Abu Khdeir – which can accurately be described as a revenge killing and the suspected perpetrators were caught by the Israeli security forces within days and are currently standing trial.
The other deaths in recent months have been the result of terror attacks, of the summer war instigated by Hamas, cases in which Palestinians engaged in violent rioting were shot or cases in which terrorists were killed.
The video’s message is related in text which reads as follows:
“In a city constantly on edge, the attack on a Jerusalem synagogue comes after months of unrest.
In July a Palestinian teenager was killed in an apparent reprisal for the killing of three Israeli teenagers.
Escalating violence led to a conflict in Gaza that claimed more than 2,000 lives.
In October a dispute over a holy site in Jerusalem triggered further unrest.
Palestinians have carried out several deadly attacks against Israelis.
Killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces have also fuelled anger.
Jewish settlement activity in occupied East Jerusalem heightened tensions.
Some believe this could be the start of a third intifada or Palestinian uprising.”
The wisdom of trying to explain the background to the current surge in Palestinian terrorism and violence in a ninety-second video is obviously questionable from the start but as we have seen above, the BBC claimed it could pull it off and explain the issues to its audiences in that time frame and medium.
Beyond the glaring fact that the word terrorism does not (once again) get a mention in a video purporting to explain a terrorist attack, audiences are not told that Hamas carried out the kidnappings and murders of the three Israeli teenagers or who killed the Palestinian teenager. Neither are they told (yet again) that it was actually the hundreds of missiles fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli civilians by Hamas and other terrorist groups which sparked the conflict in Gaza (and of course in Israel too, although the BBC manages to make that fact disappear) and the discovery of dozens of cross-border attack tunnels dug by Hamas which exacerbated the hostilities.
The claim of “a dispute over a holy site in Jerusalem” is of course misleading and inaccurate. Israeli officials of the highest level have repeatedly and unequivocally stated that there will be no change in the status quo at Temple Mount, so no “dispute” actually exists. What does exist, however, is a deliberately manufactured campaign of incitement by Palestinian leaders from assorted factions which has been going on since long before October, and of which the myth of ‘threats’ to Muslim holy sites is just one aspect. The BBC of course erased PA incitement and glorification of terrorism during the period following the kidnappings and murders of the three Israeli teenagers from audience view, just as it ignored incitement from the same source during the summer conflict and continues to do even after four weeks of terror attacks in Israel.
Viewers of this video are not informed that “killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces” happened because those Palestinians were engaged either in violent rioting or in carrying out terror attacks at the time. That lack of context of course creates a very misleading impression, implying justification for “anger” which manifests itself as terror attacks and violent rioting.
And of course no BBC report can pass up on the opportunity of promoting the simplistic notion that Jerusalem planning committee meetings on the topic of housing which will not be constructed for years in areas which, according to any reasonable scenario, will remain under Israeli control in the event of a peace deal causes “tensions” which prompt the apparently irresistible urge to run down pedestrians with a van.
Not content with having misled audiences for months now with regard to the cause of the summer’s conflict, the BBC continues to promote an inaccurate narrative of a ‘cycle of violence’ in which the advancement of the notion of moral equivalence trumps facts and acts of terror are portrayed as ‘revenge killings’. It comes as no surprise to find the BBC sticking to form by avoiding calling terrorism by name even though most of the euphemistically termed “deadly attacks” were carried out by members of assorted terrorist organisations and claimed by their leaders.
Whether or not we elect to name this recent surge of violence and terrorism a third Intifada is irrelevant but in order to properly understand current events, BBC audiences do need to know that they – like the previous “uprising” as the BBC so romantically puts it – are running on the fuel of deliberate incitement and glorification of terrorism supplied by the Palestinian leadership: this time around members of a ‘unity government’ made up of those incapable of negotiating a peace agreement and those who reject that possibility outright.
This video backgrounder does nothing to help BBC audiences understand “what caused the attack” in Har Nof as its promotion claims. In fact, it does everything to avoid telling them about the most significant factor behind that attack and others by further perpetuating a narrative which BBC staff have obviously embraced to the hilt, but which is also a smokescreen concealing the story which the BBC shows no sign of intending to tell.
