Superficial BBC reporting of Tlaib and Omar story

This is a cross-post from BBC Watch

This is a cross-post from BBC Watch

On August 15th the BBC News website published a report headlined “Israel bars Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from visiting” on its ‘Middle East’ page. The opening paragraph similarly told readers that:T and O art 1

“Israel is blocking two US Democratic lawmakers, who are prominent critics of the Israeli government, from visiting.”

The following lines however indicated that the BBC is well aware of the fact that the two Congresswomen had no interest in visiting Israel as a whole.

“Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were due to visit the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem next week.”

Readers were told that:

“Both have supported the boycott movement against Israel, but Israeli law allows supporters of the campaign to be banned from visiting.”

And:

“Israeli law blocks entrance visas to any foreigner who calls for any type of boycott that targets Israel – either economic, cultural or academic.

The law attempts to suppress the “boycott, divest, sanction” movement, which has drawn growing support across Europe and the US.” [emphasis added]

Not only is that representation of the 2017 amendment to the ‘Entry to Israel’ law inaccurate (the amendment gives the interior minister leeway to make exceptions) but as usual the BBC did not clarify to its audiences that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) promotes the so-called ‘right of return’ for millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees which would lead to the elimination of the Jewish state and thereby deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination.  

Read the rest of this post here.

 

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