The afternoon edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour‘ on November 17th included the BBC’s summary of the week’s events in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The same item was repeated in the evening edition of ‘Newshour’ (from 14:04 here) and on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘PM‘ (from 21:11 here).
Presenter Paul Henley introduced the item (from 07:06 here):
[emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Henley: “Now tensions have flared this week between Israel and Hamas – the militant group in control of Gaza. In a fallout a key minister resigned from the Israeli government, triggering talks over the government’s future. On Monday Israel and Hamas were involved in their most serious exchange of blows in recent years. Hundreds of rockets were fired from Gaza, killing a Palestinian man in southern Israel, while there were widespread Israeli airstrikes on the Strip, leaving seven people dead. Our Middle East correspondent Tom Bateman reports.”
Once again, BBC World Service listeners were not informed that at least four of those “seven people” were claimed as members by two separate terror factions – the PFLP and PIJ.
The report from Tom Bateman began with the type of account that was conspicuously absent from his reporting from southern Israel earlier in the week.
Bateman: “Well they’re clearing the rubble from the wrecked buildings here in the centre of Gaza City. Next to me is a mountain of rubble. It was a ten-storey building that has been completely reduced to wreckage. And behind that is a building which the entire side has come away. I can see inside people’s apartments. The electricity cables are dangling down like streamers towards the street.” […]
Man: “The explosion, big explosion, came and the building, as you see…”
Bateman: “Completely destroyed.”
Man: “Yeah and my flat of course is totally lost, with all my possessions in it.”
Bateman: “So the suit you’re wearing, that you ran out of the building in that night and this bag here – that’s all you’ve got.”
Man: “Yeah.”
Bateman: “Dr Adnan al Waheidi [phonetic] was home late from his pediatric clinic on Monday. A panicked neighbour called, telling him to leave. The Israeli military had phoned through a warning and then the airstrike came. His apartment block was among more than 150 sites struck in Gaza that Israel said had been used by Hamas. Residents spoke of the most intense night of airstrikes in four years.”
Man: “We are victimised – painfully and continuously. It’s not a matter of temporary even such as an earthquake or a flood. No: this is politically driven.”
Significantly, BBC audiences have not seen or heard any comparable interviews with any of the Israelis whose homes were damaged or destroyed by rockets launched at civilian targets by multiple Gaza Strip based terror factions.
Bateman went on – once again failing to clarify to BBC audiences that the seven Palestinians killed in the firefight near Khan Younis on November 11th were all members of two terror factions and yet again erasing from view the 17 rocket attacks against Israeli civilians which were launched on that date.
Bateman: “The bombing was in response to waves of Hamas rocket attacks which triggered sirens in southern Israeli towns. The barrage took place from Palestinian militants who’d vowed revenge. On Sunday they’d uncovered a secret operation by Israeli Special Forces inside Gaza, sparking an intense exchange of fire. Seven Palestinians and an Israeli officer were killed. Israel said Hamas sent nearly 500 rockets and mortars into southern Israel.”
Girl: “I stayed at the safe room with my mum and it was crowded and it was scary, you know, and I hear all the bombs and I hear all the helicopters and I hear the alarms knowing that if I look outside the window I see everything and it’s like, it’s like, it’s a routine scene here but it’s scary that that might kill me. While I’m looking out the window it might kill me.”
Listeners then discovered that Bateman was present at a protest march about which BBC audiences had previously heard nothing.
Bateman: “Kim Philips lives a mile from the Gaza Strip. Last week, in the days before the latest flare-up, she had joined a protest march to Jerusalem. Israeli high-school students living near Gaza claimed politicians weren’t taking the security threat seriously enough.”
Boy: “My name is Yuval.”
Bateman: “What’s the message that you want to get across?”
Boy: “We want to get acknowledged. We feel like nobody cares about us. We’re there like in the past seven months with [unintelligible] fires and missiles and nobody takes any step to make a change.”
With BBC audiences having heard very little indeed about the months of arson attacks on Israeli farmland, forests and nature reserves surrounding the Gaza Strip, listeners could be forgiven for finding that reference to fires confusing.
Bateman went on, adopting the standard BBC framing of months of violent rioting and acts of terror as “protests”, failing to clarify that they were organised and facilitated by Hamas and additional terror factions and refraining from informing listeners that a significant proportion of those killed were linked to those terror factions.
Bateman: “Tensions have boiled for months on the Gaza perimeter. More than 220 Palestinians have died from Israeli fire – mostly during weekly protests at the fence. An Israeli soldier was shot dead in July by a Palestinian sniper. Intensive efforts by Egypt and the UN to broker a truce had staggered on. Hamas sought an easing of Gaza’s blockade by Israel and Egypt amid the ever-deteriorating state of daily life in the Strip. Israel demanded calm at the fence. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had gone along with the diplomatic efforts to avoid – he said – an unnecessary war. In Gaza a tentative ceasefire held since Tuesday but the skies did not clear. Thunderstorms rumbled in over the Mediterranean and a political lightning bolt struck close to Mr Netanyahu.”
The ceasefire of course also applied to southern Israel. Bateman continued:
Bateman: “Amid a blaze of camera flashes, the hawkish Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned, describing a process of agreement with Hamas as capitulation to terror. His move could yet spark a general election in Israel within months. Mr Netanyahu retorted, implying Hamas were on their knees. They were begging for a ceasefire, he said. Nevertheless, the nationalistic songs have echoed in Gaza as militant groups claimed a victory. But the pressures on both sides not to be seen to back down could yet prove decisive. Whether external diplomacy can overcome another slide towards conflict will be watched as closely by the residents on both sides.”
As we see, the take-away summary of the week’s events provided to listeners to BBC World Service Radio and BBC Radio 4 by Tom Bateman gives an account of damage to buildings in the Gaza Strip – with no comparable account of damage in southern Israel – while failing to sufficiently clarify that whereas the targets of Israeli airstrikes were sites used by terror factions, the targets of those terrorist groups were Israeli civilians. Additionally, we see that the practice of describing members of terror factions killed while engaged in violent activities as mere “Palestinians” continues to blight BBC reporting.
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