Earlier this week we documented yet another example of BBC promotion of disinformation concerning a January 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ):
BBC AUDIENCES ONCE AGAIN HEAR ‘GENOCIDE’ DISINFORMATION
Just three days after that television programme was broadcast, it happened again.
On November 30th the BBC Radio 4 podcast ‘Political Thinking with Nick Robinson’ aired an edition titled “The Husam Zomlot one”.
Predictably, given that Husam Zomlot is frequently given a platform by the BBC, that nearly forty-nine-minute-long podcast (which will remain available “indefinitely”) includes many of the PLO envoy’s usual falsehoods and inevitable distortions on topics including the war between Israel and Hamas, the Balfour Declaration, the first Intifada and the anti-Israel demonstrations in the UK.
Equally foreseeable was Zomlot’s mostly unchallenged bandying of slogans such as “mass murder”, “starvation and disease as weapons of war”, “racism”, “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing”. Even a Holocaust analogy (from 25:38) in the form of the claim that women and children in the northern Gaza Strip are going on “death marches towards the south” did not prompt a reaction from Robinson.
One section, however, is particularly notable because it promotes disinformation coming from Nick Robinson himself rather than from a politically motivated guest.
At 22:39 Zomlot claimed that:
Zomlot: “…this is the first time that a genocide is being live streamed in real time by the people who are being genocided [sic]…”
Robinson subsequently responded: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Robinson: “I don’t want to disappear into an argument about language but you know that that word genocide is not accepted by the British government or the Americans or the French or…or…or the Germans.”
Zomlot: “Well that’s none of the British government’s business or your business, Nick. It’s the business of the ICJ. That’s why we have created the highest court on the globe.”
Robinson: “Well they haven’t found there was genocide…”
Zomlot [interrupts] “They did!”
Robinson: “No, no – they’ve said it’s plausible that it might have been committed…”
Zomlot [interrupts] “Good.”
Robinson: “They have not said that there has been genocide.”
Zomlot: “Wait until the final judgement. But the moment the judges say plausible means the conversation is over.”
Robinson: “Yeah, well, I don’t think the conversation is over until the case is over.”
Over seven months have passed since the president of the ICJ at the time that ruling was issued, Joan Donoghue, explained to the BBC and its audiences the meaning of its use of the term plausible. [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Sackur: “…would it be fair to say that the key point — that you made your initial order and ruling upon — was whether or not there was a plausible case that should be taken on by the court of genocide in the case of Israel’s actions in Gaza after October 7 — and you quite clearly decided that there was a plausible case? Is it right to say that’s at the heart of what you decided?”
Donoghue: “I’m glad to have a chance to address that because the court’s test for deciding whether to impose measures uses the idea of plausibility — but the test is the plausibility of the rights that are asserted by the applicant, in this case South Africa. So the court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court.
It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide — and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media — it didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.
It did emphasise in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide. But the shorthand that often appears — which is that there’s a plausible case of genocide —isn’t what the court decided.”
Nevertheless – and despite the BBC having had to issue multiple corrections – its audiences continue to be misled on the matter of the ICJ’s ruling by both BBC journalists and interviewees.
If BBC management has not already put out a memo clarifying that issue to its staff, then clearly there is an urgent need to do so. If it has done that, but BBC journalists nevertheless continue to facilitate or promote that disinformation, then clearly action needs to be taken by the media organisation which, ironically, touts itself as “leading the global fight against disinformation”.
As for Husam Zomlot, he was clearly content with the outcome of his chummy chat with Robinson; so much so that the PLO mission in the UK decided to upload part of it to YouTube – presumably with BBC permission – with added ‘genocide’ disinformation thrown in.
Related Articles:
A BBC INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS MULTIPLE BBC MISREPRESENTATIONS OF ICJ RULING
BBC UNABLE TO REPLY TO A COMPLAINT ABOUT ITEMS IT ALREADY AMENDED
BBC ISSUES BELATED CORRECTION ON INACCURATE ICJ CLAIM
CAMERA UK PROMPTS CORRECTION TO BBC ‘GENOCIDE’ DISINFORMATION
The IPC (aka BBC) should report that Hamas has vowed to kill every Jew on the planet – and that IS intended genocide. The IPC should report also that Israel supplied a million anti-polio vaccines to the Palestinians in Gaza – and that IS NOT genocide.