Even as the BBC’s funding public sees its elected representatives debate issues relating to official Palestinian incitement and glorification of terrorism, the corporation continues to avoid providing them with the comprehensive picture of those issues which would not only enhance their understanding of news coming from the Middle East, but also of events in their own parliament.
Last week the Palestinian Authority and the PLO erected a monument to a terrorist who murdered fifteen people and wounded scores of others in 1975.
“The Palestinian Authority went through with its plans yesterday to establish a monument honoring the terrorist Ahmad Jabarah Abu Sukkar, who planned the detonation of a bomb-laden refrigerator in the center of Jerusalem…. […]
Palestinian officials participating in this event […] include, among others:
– Director of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake
– Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh, Laila Ghannam
– PA Parliament Member Qais Abd Al-Karim.”
Although there is nothing novel about the fact that the BBC elected to ignore this example of glorification of terrorism just as it has countless others, in this particular case we know that the corporation is well aware of Ahmad Jabarah’s resume of terrorism because it not only covered his release from prison (as a ‘goodwill gesture’ to the PA) in 2003 but even saw fit to broadcast what one BBC journalist termed “a really remarkable interview” with him on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme.
But while the PA keeps up its practice of making national heroes of dead terrorists with monuments, street namings and sports tournament dedications, the BBC continues to indoctrinate its audiences with the notion that the prime ‘obstacle to peace’ is Israeli building.
