On March 22nd a report credited to Anna Foster and David Gritten – ‘Ban lifted on Israelis’ return to evacuated West Bank settlements’ – appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East page.
The report’s opening lines inform readers that:
“Israel’s parliament has voted to allow Israeli citizens back into the sites of four settlements in the occupied West Bank which were evacuated at the time of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
There has been international criticism of the bill, as the settlements were built on what the High Court of Justice ruled was private Palestinian land.” [emphasis added]
That latter sentence is inaccurate. The court’s ruling actually related to just one of those four sites – Homesh. The other three communities which were evacuated in 2005, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim, were not located on land privately owned by Palestinians.
The BBC’s report repeatedly refers to Ramadan:
“But it risks further inflaming tensions with Palestinians ahead of Ramadan.”
“”Coming at a time of heightened tensions, the legislative changes announced today are particularly provocative and counterproductive to efforts to restore some measures of calm as we head into Ramadan, Passover and the Easter holidays,” state department spokesman Vedant Patel said.”
“It was part of a series of measures designed to calm tensions ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which is scheduled to start later this week and coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover and the Christian festival of Easter.”
As is usually the case in BBC reporting, readers are not told that any increased “tensions” during the month of Ramadan – including this year – are the product of incitement by interested parties and pre-planned acts of violence rather than some mere calendarial coincidence.
Readers are inaccurately informed that “a surge of violence” began “this year” rather than in May 2021:
“There has been a surge of violence between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem this year.
At least 88 Palestinians – militants and civilians – have been killed by Israeli forces, and on the Israeli side, 16 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, all civilians, except for a paramilitary police officer.”
As has become standard BBC practice, this report makes no effort to inform readers of the ratio of “militants” to civilians among the Palestinians killed in 2023, thereby concealing from audience view the fact that the overwhelming majority were terrorists and/or males engaged in acts of violence at the time. The number of Israelis murdered in terror attacks this year is actually fifteen, including one who died two days prior to this article’s publication from wounds sustained in a terror attack in Tel Aviv on March 9th which the BBC News website did not report.
Related Articles:
BBC’S KNELL DUSTS OFF THE CALENDARIAL OVERLAP EXCUSE FOR VIOLENCE
BBC NEWS WEBSITE AIRBRUSHING OF PIJ AND HAMAS
BBC’S KNELL AMPLIFIES PA TALKING POINTS ON AN AS YET NON-STORY
