On March 3rd a report appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page under the headline “West Bank documentary maker criticises US policy in Oscars speech”. Credited to US based BBC North America editor Christal Hayes and originally including a video which has since been removed, that report opens by telling readers that:
“An Israeli journalist has said US foreign policy “is helping to block” a path towards a political solution in the Middle East as he picked up a best documentary Oscar for No Other Land, a feature set in the occupied West Bank.
The acceptance speech at the 97th Academy Awards was one of the most overtly political moments of the night.
Yuval Abraham said his life was very different to that of his colleague, Palestinian journalist Basel Adra. “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal,” Abraham told the audience.”
Later in the report, readers find the following:
“Adra thanked the Academy and said he became a father two months ago.
“I hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing settlers’ violence, home demolitions and forceful displacements.”
He said the film reflected “the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades”.”
Hayes’ portrayal of the film’s subject matter is confined to one sentence:
“The film follows the fight over Masafer Yatta, a community of around 20 villages, and the friendship between Adra and Abraham.”
The ‘context’ she provides includes the BBC’s inevitable mantra on “international law” but makes no mention of the Oslo Accords and the fact that Masafer Yatta is located in Area C, which according to that agreement signed by the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, remains under Israeli control pending final status negotiations.
“Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. Israeli settlements in the territory are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. They have expanded over the past 55 [sic] years, becoming a focal point of violence and conflicting claims over land.”
Hayes’ failure to provide her readers with any relevant and factual context concerning the subject matter of film and its creators’ “overtly political” statements is particularly significant in light of the fact that the BBC has previously avoided providing such information. In 2022 the BBC produced several items relating to Masafer Yatta, none of which told the whole story accurately and impartially.
In May 2022 listeners to BBC World Service radio heard about “the 1,000 Palestinians who look set to be evicted from their homes in an area in the southern occupied West Bank after Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by Palestinian villagers against their land being declared a so-called firing zone to be used for training exercises by the Israeli military.” [emphasis added]
As was documented here at the time:
“As noted in the court’s ruling published less than 48 hours previously on the evening of May 4th, the firing zone in question was actually first “declared” in 1980 and the petitioners failed to produce any documentation proving that they have any legal rights to what Mosuro inaccurately told listeners is “their land”.”
BBC’S ‘NEWSDAY’ PROMOTES A ONE-SIDED PR NARRATIVE
In August 2022 the BBC News website published a filmed report by Yolande Knell which was also aired on BBC television. Audio versions of that report were aired on domestic and international BBC radio stations. As was noted here at the time, the introductions to the audio reports and the filmed version, misled BBC audiences with regard to the sequence and timing of events.
“In fact, as noted in the relevant High Court ruling, the area concerned was designated as a military zone over forty years ago and the unauthorised construction of buildings and structures by Palestinians, who failed to prove any legal claim to the land, took place after that.
The BBC, however, inverted the sequence of events in all its reports, thereby materially misleading audiences on multiple platforms.”
Those BBC reports failed to meet BBC editorial guidelines concerning ‘contributors’ affiliations’:
“Both the filmed and audio versions of Knell’s report feature an inadequately presented contributor named Basil al-Adraa. In the filmed version he is portrayed merely as a “Palestinian activist”. In the audio version he is described as one of Knell’s accompanying “anti-demolition activists” who is “from Tuwani in Masafer Yatta”.
Viewers and listeners are not informed that al-Adraa (also spelt Basel Adra) is a professional activist who is involved with the political NGO B’tselem and writes for the radical websites +972 Magazine and Sikha Mekomit (Local Call) or that he runs a Twitter account dedicated to the topic of Knell’s reports.”
As was also noted at the time:
“Knell made no effort to clarify […] that the Palestinians currently located in Masafer Yatta had failed to prove ownership of the land concerned throughout twenty years of court cases. Neither did she bother to explain that the location is sited in Area C and hence “is under full Israeli control” because it was categorised as such (pending final status negotiations) in the Oslo Accords signed by the PLO representatives of the Palestinians. The fact that the area from which she reports was previously illegally occupied by Jordan and designated part of the Jewish homeland by the League of Nations did not prompt Knell to provide the necessary qualifications concerning her interviewee’s claims concerning “my land” and “our land as Palestinians”.”
BBC JERUSALEM BUREAU ‘JOURNAVISM’ GOES TO MASAFER YATTA
In November 2024 BBC Radio 4 recycled that story, once again with the participation of “Palestinian journalist Basel Adra”.
“And so, for the third time in six months BBC audiences heard a one-sided account of the Masafer Yatta story which exclusively promoted the perspectives of local activists and interested NGOs while demonstrating persistent avoidance of relevant facts relating to the legal case and the decades of illegal construction (sometimes foreign funded) in the area and failing to include any comment from an Israeli representative.”
THE BBC’S ONE-SIDED MASAFER YATTA CAMPAIGNING CONTINUES
The BBC’s record on this topic means that Hayes’ failure to provide her readers with any factual information concerning “the fight over Masafer Yatta” comes as no surprise.
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