Days after her PR trip to a Beirut hospital, the BBC’s Orla Guerin went on another excursion – this time to Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. Once again BBC audiences were not informed who facilitated her visit to that Hizballah dominated town, although a clue might perhaps be found in Guerin’s portrayal of one of her tour guides. [emphasis added]
“The old market, or souk, was treasured by Hussein Jaber, 30, who is part of the government’s emergency services. He and his men, some of them volunteers, take us there for a brief visit. They drive at speed – the only way to travel in Nabatieh.”
Guerin’s November 4th article – also credited to Weitske Burema and Angie Mrad – is headlined “‘We are not military – why are we being hit?’” and it opens with an interview with a patient at a hospital in Nabatieh, named only as Mohammed, who repeats that main talking point of her report.
‘“We are not military,” he says, “we are not terrorists. Why are we being hit? The areas that are being hit are all civilian areas.”
Mohammed will return home to his village, Arab Salim, when he is discharged, though it remains under fire. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he says. “If I could [leave] I would. There’s no place.”’
Guerin of course has nothing to tell her readers about the fact that Arab Salim has long been known as the location of one of Hizballah’s military sites in the area north of Nabatieh – a compound of houses serving as the center of the “al-Rehan sector” – or that in January 2021, the village held one of several Hizballah events commemorating the anniversary of the death of the IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani.
Similarly, Guerin’s descriptions of Nabatieh fail to make any mention of Hizballah, despite an October 21st BBC report having acknowledged that it is one of the areas in which that terrorist organisation “has a strong presence”.
“It is one of the biggest cities in the south, and just 11km (seven miles) from the border with Israel, as the crow flies. Before the war it was home to about 80,000 people.”
“Nabatieh has been under fire for more than a month.
The municipality building was blown up on 16 October, killing the mayor, Ahmad Kahil, and 16 others. At the time he was having a meeting to co-ordinate aid distribution. When we pass by the ruins, bundles of flat bread remain visible on the floor of a wrecked ambulance.”
As reported by the ITIC in 2021:
“In the city of Nabatieh and the rural area surrounding it, Hezbollah, with massive Iranian support, has established a substantial infrastructure of social institutions providing the local population with a wide variety of services. […]
A joint list of Hezbollah and Amal (Loyalty and Development) won the recent [last – Ed.] municipal elections in 2016. In Nabatieh there are two municipalities, headed by two mayors who are closely affiliated with Hezbollah – at least one of them is a Hezbollah member (Dr. Ahmad Kahil, who is also in charge of Hezbollah’s Hospital Unit).
Hezbollah’s municipal power helps it acquire influence on the ground and sometimes even gain funding for its civilian activity (thus, for example, the Nabatieh municipality is a client of Arch Consulting and Meamar Construction, two Hezbollah companies which have been sanctioned by the US since September 2020). […]
Hezbollah is the dominant organization in the Nabatieh region, since apart from the civilian infrastructure, it maintains security and military control in southern Lebanon and wields major influence at the local municipal level.”
That obviously relevant and important context is missing from Guerin’s account of strikes on various locations in Nabatieh, as is the fact that just days before the publication of her report, a prominent Hizballah commander was killed in that city.
In contrast, Guerin does not forget to promote unproven allegations made by an inadequately presented anti-Israel political NGO:
“Some attacks involve “apparent war crimes”, according to the international campaign group, Human Rights Watch.”
The first and only mention of Hizballah in Guerin’s thirty-eight paragraph report comes just seven paragraphs from the end.
“As for Hezbollah, its presence in the city is out of sight.
The Israel Defence forces (IDF) told us it is “operating solely against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, not against the Lebanese population.”
Israel says its fight is “against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, embedded within civilian population and infrastructure”.
A spokesman said it “takes many measures to mitigate civilian harm including advance warnings”, though there was no warning for the air strike that wounded Mohammed, or the attack that killed the mayor.”
In other words, Guerin’s idea of ticking the ‘impartiality’ box is the inclusion of a general statement from the IDF while she herself has nothing to tell BBC audiences about the crucial context of Hizballah’s dominance in Nabatieh and surrounding villages and how that is relevant the story she chooses to tell in her usual one-sided and emotional style.
In the absence of that essential context, this report – like so many others produced by Guerin and her colleagues – becomes nothing more than an exercise in gory tabloid-style sensationalism.
Related Articles:
BBC’S GUERIN COLLABORATES WITH A POINTLESS PR TRIP
HIGH ON NARRATIVES, LOW ON FACTS: BBC’S ORLA GUERIN IN SOUTHERN LEBANON
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orla_Guerin
“Guerin was appointed the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent in January 2001.[2] Almost two years later, the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing her of a “deep-seated bias against Israel” in a report on a teenage would-be suicide bomber.[7] The BBC defended Guerin’s reporting.[8] Caroline Hawley succeeded her as the BBC’s correspondent in Jerusalem.[9] In December 2005, the BBC told Broadcast magazine that Guerin had spent two years longer in the Jerusalem posting than the normal three-year rotation usual for its correspondents.”
Seems BBC has forgotten her “deep-seated bias against Israel” in allowing her to file reports from Lebanon – what more could one expect from somebody of Irish origin! Note her connection “Guerin married Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy in 2003” who is Middle East Lead Writer, Thomson Reuters https://x.com/michaelgeorgy1?lang=en