Four years ago CAMERA UK began documenting some of the BBC News website’s coverage of the vandalism perpetrated by the then relatively new UK-based group ‘Palestine Action’.
BBC NEWS MUDDIES RADICAL GROUP’S ANTI-ISRAEL AGENDA
Most of that inconsistently tagged coverage is found on regional pages on the BBC News website and written by local journalists. One consistent theme in that reporting is presentation of the group as ‘pro-Palestine’ or ‘pro-Palestinian’ and an example of that was recently found in a report tagged “Israel & the Palestinians” which was published on the website’s “Beds, Herts & Bucks” page following a January 29th break-in at a factory in Denham.
Titled “Ejection seat firm targeted by pro-Palestine group” and credited to Louise Parry, that report repeats the headline’s “pro-Palestine” framing in its opening paragraph.
“Pro-Palestine activists have admitted breaking into and damaging the headquarters of a company that makes aircraft ejection seats.
Palestine Action claimed Buckinghamshire-based aircraft firm Martin-Baker was “known to supply ejection seats for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets”.
Thames Valley Police said two people wearing dark clothing and face coverings used a hammer, crowbar and spray paint to damage a building in the early hours of Wednesday. […]
Palestine Action said it smashed office windows with hammers and painted the building red.”
Louise Parry is far from the first BBC journalist to mislead readers with that “pro-Palestine” portrayal of the group which – as clearly stated in its original ‘constitution’ – adheres to an inherently anti-Israel agenda.
BBC audiences would of course be better equipped to understand the context to the vandalism described in Parry’s report were they informed that ‘Palestine Action’ in fact aspires to ‘end the occupation’ which it claims started “in 1948” – in other words, the elimination of a sovereign country.
Another report about vandalism perpetrated by ‘Palestine Action’ in the UK appeared three days earlier on the BBC News website with the tag “Israel-Gaza war”. Titled “Two arrested after van rammed into factory gates” and credited to Julia Bryson, that article relates to an incident on January 28th at a factory in Shipley, West Yorkshire which – as the BBC knows – has also been targeted by ‘Palestine Action’ twice in the past.
“Two people have been arrested after a van weighted with concrete was driven into security gates at a defence technology factory, police have said.
Group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the incident at Teledyne in Shipley, near Bradford – which specialises in supplying electronics to the aerospace and defence sectors – saying it was part of a protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza.”
While Bryson wisely refrained from describing ‘Palestine Action’ as “pro-Palestine”, she did choose to describe it as a “protest group”:
“On social media, the protest group said its members’ actions were “disrupting the production of crucial parts for Israel’s missiles and fighter jets”.”
She also considered it necessary to provide her readers with ‘context’ which includes the following statement:
“Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank since 1967.”
While one may not expect a UK regional reporter to be familiar with the details of a conflict thousands of miles away, BBC News website editors should be aware of the fact that Israel has not “occupied” the Gaza Strip since 2005 when it removed all soldiers and civilians from the territory (including those buried there) and that “the West Bank” was previously illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan chose to attack Israel.
The BBC’s style guide does not include the Gaza Strip in its definition of “occupied territories” and its entry for “Palestinian Territories” reads as follows:
“Strictly speaking, the phrase ‘Palestinian Territories’ refers to the areas that fall under the administration of the Palestinian Authority […].”
Nevertheless, Julia Bryson found fit to promote the notion that “areas that fall under the administration of the Palestinian Authority” are ‘occupied’ by Israel.
Bryson’s failure to provide the context that is a proper explanation of the agenda of ‘Palestine Action’ means that BBC audiences remain unaware of the fact that its illegal acts of violence, burglary and vandalism (the perpetrators of which it ridiculously chooses to describe as “political prisoners”) have nothing to do with the events of 1967 but rather are rooted in rejection of Israel’s very existence.
In the almost four-and-a-half years since ‘Palestine Action’ came into being, the BBC’s reporting on its actions (which have included vandalism of BBC property) has been mostly confined to local website pages, with no dedicated tag and no backgrounder to explain the agenda of that extremist group to members of the British public who fund the policing and legal system dealing with its agitprop.
In May 2024 the BBC published a report titled “‘Extreme’ protest groups face ban under proposal” which opened as follows:
“Protest groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action could be banned in a similar way to terrorist organisations, under a proposal from the government’s adviser on political violence.”
Notably, that report includes a dedicated BBC tag and offers a BBC backgrounder for ‘Just Stop Oil’, which came into existence over 18 months after ‘Palestine Action’. Clearly then, time is not the factor which has so far prevented the BBC from providing the full range of information about ‘Palestine Action’ to its audiences.
The BBC published an article ‘My daughter was branded a terrorist’ about a Palestine Action member which never mentioned that Palestine Action members attacked police with sledgehammers and injured Elbit employees during an attack in Bristol last August.