A report by David Gritten which was published on the BBC News website on July 12th includes the following paragraphs: [emphasis added]
“Separately, the US embassy in Jerusalem has said it condemns recent violence by Israeli settlers against the Christian town of Taybeh in the West Bank.
Most of the land there is owned by Palestinian-Americans and, according to locals, some 300 residents are US passport holders.
Attacks, including by masked men torching cars and attacking homes, have ramped up. On Monday, settlers set fields ablaze close to a fifth-Century church, leading to a call for international action from the town’s priests.
The State Department said in response it had no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas and that protecting Christians was a priority for President Donald Trump.”
Notably, Gritten did not name a source or provide any evidence to back up his unequivocal statement “settlers set fields ablaze”.
That claim relating to a fire on July 7th has been promoted , among others, by Father Bashar Fawadleh who is the Latin Church pastor in Taybeh and who later made the following assertions in a related interview:
“I’m a Christian priest, and I’m Palestinian. I was born in Jerusalem, and my family are from a small village near Ramallah. I am forbidden to go to Jerusalem without permission. I am forbidden to drive my car without permission. These restrictions are because we are Palestinians, not because we are Christians or Muslims. That’s why we are asking the international community for our rights – the rights to move, to live, to travel, to play, to learn, to go for a picnic, to have some rest, to go to the beach. We don’t have those rights.”
On July 21st the Israeli Police put out a statement clarifying that the incident is under investigation, that it has not yet been confirmed that the incident was the result of arson and that any perpetrator has yet to be identified.
Clearly David Gritten did not bother to carry out even basic fact-checking or verification before telling BBC audiences around the world that “settlers set fields ablaze”.
CAMERA UK has submitted a complaint requesting a correction.
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