The explosions of Hizballah communications devices on September 17th and 18th were the topic of extensive BBC coverage on all its various platforms.
The BBC promoted some noteworthy framing of that story, some examples of which can be seen below. [emphasis added]
Written reports on the BBC News website included the following:
“Bowen: Tactical triumph for Israel, but Hezbollah won’t be deterred”, by Jeremy Bowen, September 18th:
“But there is fury and alarm in Lebanon and the wider region that Israel’s attacks appear to have been launched with little concern for bystanders and family members who have been wounded and killed alongside Hezbollah fighters.”
“Death toll from Hezbollah pager explosions in Lebanon rises to 12”, by David Gritten, September 18th:
“Lebanon’s health minister says the number of people killed when pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah exploded on Tuesday has risen to 12, including two children and four healthcare workers. […]
Lebanon’s health minister said an eight-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy were among the dead, as well as several healthcare workers from Dahiyeh, in southern Beirut, who had been using pagers. […]
Hezbollah has announced the deaths of 12 fighters since Tuesday afternoon, including the son of the Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar. However, it has not given details on the locations and circumstances, saying only that they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem” – a phrase it has been using to refer to fighters killed by Israel.
The only death the group directly attributed to a pager explosion was an employee of the al-Rassoul Al-Aazam Hospital in southern Beirut.”
As reported by the Washington Post:
“Some of the pagers were given to active fighters, according to those familiar; others handled logistics, were in the group’s reserves — available to be called up as fighters in the event of a full-scale war — or worked in civilian institutions such as hospitals.
“Those who use the pagers are people who do not have just one job,” said a Lebanese individual close to Hezbollah. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters, explaining that members often play different roles within the organization. […]
Experts estimate that Hezbollah has up to 50,000 active fighters and tens of thousands more reservists. The pagers were widely distributed among the reserve corps, according to the individual close to Hezbollah, and would be used to call them up for service — whether to fight, treat the injured or perform other duties. […]
Muhammed Kanj, 11, had gone to a neighbor’s house on Tuesday to see a friend. The pager, owned by his friend’s father, had been left in the room where the boys were playing when it started to beep, said his aunt, 59-year-old Safa Kanj.
Muhammed was killed, and his friend was injured.”
The important context of Hizballah reservists carrying the targeted pagers in civilian neighbourhoods and facilities such as hospitals was not a feature of BBC coverage.
Listeners to the BBC’s ‘Newscast’ podcast and TV programme on September 18th were told by security correspondent Frank Gardner that the incident is “a message, and a very powerful and sinister one”.
Viewers of the BBC News Channel on the morning of the same day were told (7:09) of “a large-scale attack here; something that’s really affected civilians”.
Later the same day, BBC TV viewers were told by an interviewee (01:42) that Israel had “literally turned instruments of 20th century communications into weapons of mass destruction”.
In another BBC television programme, audiences were told (09:51) by Jeremy Bowen that:
“…there are plenty of people criticising Israel as well for using force somewhat indiscriminately. As well as hitting military targets – those Hizballah fighters – also killing members of their families, killing children, killing bystanders in markets.”
That framing by Bowen was repeated (from 05:00) in the September 19th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘The Newsroom’ and listeners were told (04:37) that the UN Secretary General had said that “governments should not – quote – weaponize civilian objects”.
The September 18th edition of BBC Two’s ‘Newsnight’ included extensive comment from Daniel Levy who was presented as “a former negotiator for the Israeli government in peace talks with the Palestinians” (with viewers not told that was over two decades ago) who is “now critical of the current government”. In an item introduced as being about “Israel’s strategy”, Levy told viewers that:
Levy: “This is a new type of warfare. We see mass maimings. This has clearly hit civilians. It feels like a textbook definition of terrorising people.”
That part of Levy’s contribution was also recycled in the above edition of ‘The Newsroom’ (from 03:50).
On ‘Newsnight’, Levy went on to claim that:
“If you look at that off the back of what’s gone on in Gaza – the arrest warrants requested at the International Criminal Court for starvation as a weapon of war, what the International Court of Justice has said is a plausible genocide – what this means for how war is conducted and Israel can get away with this raises a whole new set of questions.”
Presenter Jo Coburn failed to clarify to viewers that “starvation” is not being used “as a weapon of war” in the Gaza Strip and that in fact Israel has facilitated the entry of over a million tons of aid since the war began. Like far too many of her colleagues, she also failed to relieve audiences of the misconception promoted by Levy regarding the ICJ, which – as the BBC well knows – has not said that “a plausible genocide” is happening in the Gaza Strip.
As we see from the above examples, in much of the BBC’s content this story was portrayed as an “indiscriminate” attack using “civilian objects” which “affected civilians” and “healthcare workers”. In fact, those pagers and walkie-talkies had been purchased by Hizballah and then specifically issued to the terrorist organisation’s operatives for the purpose of communicating, planning and conducting operations. The BBC however chose to platform politically motivated portrayals of the precise targeting of a terrorist organisation’s operational communications network as “a textbook definition of terrorising people” with “weapons of mass destruction”.
A clearer example of the framing of a story in an attempt to influence public opinion is difficult to imagine.
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Boo hoo Bowen, terrorist groupie … plenty of his mates missing a few fingers these days.
Lucky for him he left his Hezbollah pager with his minder …
Bowen “indiscriminately. As well as hitting military targets – those Hizballah fighters – also killing members of their families, killing children, killing bystanders in markets.” Seems as if the BBC’s chief anti Israel rabble rouser has a very short memory, or rather he has forgotten the bus bombs, the restaurant bombs, the Park Hotel Netanya Seder Service bombs, Sbarro Cafe bomb Jerusalem, the Dolphinarium Tel Aviv bombing, plane hijackings ….. the list is endless carried out by PLO, Fatah, PIJ, PLLP, Hamas, Hezbollah etc against Jews who were bystanders – his hypocrisy knows no bounds.
As to Lord Levy’s little boy Daniel, well this renegade is is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under Prime Minister Ehud Barak and at Oslo B under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. See https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/daniel-levy.
The BBC has apparently forgotten this guys father , the Lord, was Blair’s tennis partner and Labour party fund raiser, awarded a peerage and then given a desk at the Foreign Office to keep Israel “under control” – got his little boy a job in Israel who then turned against the Jewish State, much like his mother, Gilda, whose knowledge of Jewish affairs left a lot to be desired before she married Michael Levy.