As we saw in an earlier post, the BBC’s reporting on a Hamas official’s announcement on May 16th that the vast majority of those killed during violent rioting on the Gaza border two days earlier were Hamas members was – to put it politely – underwhelming.
So far we have found only three brief references to that announcement in all of the BBC’s relevant content and since then BBC reporters have reverted to portraying those killed on May 14th as ‘peaceful protesters’, ‘unarmed civilians’ or merely ‘Palestinians’, despite fifty-three of them having been claimed as members by either Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Another example of that editorial policy came in a May 30th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newsday‘ in an item (from 06:09 here) introduced by presenter Paul Hawkins as follows: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Hawkins: “The UN will meet later today – the Security Council will meet later today – to discuss the upsurge of violence on Tuesday between Gaza and Israel as dozens of rockets were fired by Palestinian militants at Israel and then Israel responded with missile attacks on Gaza. Israeli intelligence minister – ah…the Israeli intelligence minister – said his country was at the closest point to the threshold of war since the seven-week conflict with Palestinian militants four years ago. Our correspondent Tom Bateman is in Jerusalem. Tom, what’s the latest?”
Stating that “tensions had begun to mount since Sunday”, Tom Bateman described just one of several incidents to have taken place in recent days while qualifying the widely reported and documented event with the words “Israel said”.
Bateman: “…Israel said it found an explosive device laid at the perimeter fence. It then…one of its tanks then shelled a military post inside Gaza which killed three members of the militant group Islamic Jihad.”
Bateman then went on to describe the 22 hours of mortar and rocket fire launched against Israeli civilian communities on May 29th/30th but without clarifying that Hamas and the PIJ had issued a statement claiming joint responsibility for those attacks. Describing Israel’s response to the attacks, he told BBC audiences that:
Bateman: “The Israelis say they’ve targeted military positions belonging to militant groups – both to Hamas and to Islamic Jihad.”
In response to Hawkins’ question “why is this happening now?” Bateman linked the firing of military grade weapons at civilians – including a nursery school – by groups he studiously refrained from describing as terrorists to “anniversaries”:
Bateman: “Well there has been an escalation in tensions over the last couple of months. It’s been a significant year, both because it has been the anniversaries…the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel, 70th anniversary of what Palestinians call the Nakba; their catastrophe where they mark what they see as their historical dispossession. Then there was the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem which was welcomed by Israel but vehemently opposed by Palestinians that same week. So in the run-up to that – I’m sure listeners remember that there were weeks of protests at the Gaza border fence and Israeli troops shot dead more than a hundred Palestinians. The Palestinians say these were peaceful protests by unarmed civilians. The Israelis say that this was largely orchestrated by Hamas; that these were violent riots and people intended to storm the fence to harm Israelis and Israeli communities on the other side of the fence. So, you know, in the aftermath of that, things have been very tense…”
As we see Tom Bateman chose to ignore the fact that over 80% of the people he is happy to quote ‘Palestinians’ describing as “unarmed civilians” have been shown to have links to various terror factions. His faux impartiality concealed the fact that Hamas publicly acknowledged that five of those killed on March 30th were members of its Qassam Brigades, that it claimed 50 of those killed on May 14th and that the PIJ has also claimed several of those killed since the ‘Great Return March’ publicity stunt began.
In addition, while happy to uncritically parrot claims of “peaceful protests”, Bateman placed documented violent incidents such as shooting attacks, IED attacks and border infiltrations in the category of things “Israelis say” happened. He similarly described documented calls by Hamas leaders to infiltrate Israeli territory and attack Israeli citizens as merely things that ‘Israel says’.
Bateman then returned to the May 27th IED incident, telling BBC World Service audiences that it was Israel’s response to that – rather than a terror organisation’s act of planting an explosive device on a border fence – that caused the latest escalation.
Bateman: “…and then, you know, we’ve had these exchanges of fire over the last few days and as I said, Sunday I think was an important day in terms of the Israeli actions when they said they’d discovered an explosive device and the Islamic Jihad militants had been killed – they vowed to revenge that – and that immediate flare-up in the last few days seems to have been following what happened on Sunday.”
Just as there is no room in the BBC’s framing of the ‘Great Return March’ story for ‘distractions’ such as reporting on Hamas’ organisation, funding and facilitation of the events, the destruction of the Kerem Shalom crossing by Palestinian rioters or the repeated arson attacks on Israeli farmers’ fields close to the border, so too Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad acknowledgement of the fact that a very significant proportion of those killed during the month and a half of rioting were members of their terror groups has been expunged from the BBC’s chosen narrative.
Related Articles:
BBC WS ‘Newshour’ coverage of Gaza mortar and rocket attacks
The BBC’s ‘Great Return March’ great disappearing act
BBC ignores removal of Gaza baby from casualty list
BBC News plays down Hamas role in Gaza violence – part one
BBC News plays down Hamas role in Gaza violence – part two
