Back in August the BBC News website published a report promoting a campaign by “humanitarian groups” opposed to new regulations introduced by Israel.
BBC NEWS PROMOTES ANOTHER NGO CAMPAIGN BUT FAILS TO TELL ALL
As we noted at the time:
“…readers of this report are told nothing at all about relevant issues such as Oxfam’s anti-Israel bias, MSF’s past employment of a PIJ terrorist, the dubious links of signatories such as CARE and Islamic Relief or ANERA’s record of ‘coordination’ with Hamas government bodies.
Such information is however highly relevant to the story reported by Chater because the regulations about which those NGOs (which together provided a minimal amount of aid before the new regulations were introduced) are complaining include – as clarified by COGAT – security screening of their relevant employees.”
On December 22nd, the BBC News website published another article on the same topic under the headline “NGOs fear Israel registration rules risk collapse of Gaza aid operations”.
Coincidentally or not, on the same day that the report by David Gritten was published, Turkish media outlets also promoted the same story, with a similar report from AFP – also based on statements from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – having appeared two days earlier.
Gritten begins by telling BBC audiences that:
“The UN and other aid agencies fear new Israeli registration rules for dozens of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) risk the collapse of the humanitarian response in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
INGOs not registered by 31 December face closure of their operations in Israel within 60 days, which the agencies say could severely disrupt healthcare and other life-saving services in Gaza.”
He goes on: [emphasis added]
“Save the Children said its application had not been approved and it was “pursuing all available avenues to have this decision reconsidered”. […]
Save the Children – which has supported families in Gaza with clean water and cash assistance, as well as healthcare clinics and mother and baby areas – confirmed on Monday that it was informed several weeks ago that its registration application had not been approved.
“We are pursuing all available avenues to have this decision reconsidered, including filing a petition with the Israeli courts,” a spokesperson told the BBC.
“While we call for this decision to be reconsidered, we remain committed to delivering vital and life-saving support to children and families in the Occupied Palestinian Territory through our team of over 300 dedicated Palestinian staff together with trusted partners.””
As is noted in a recent report by the Henry Jackson Society:
“Major UN agencies and NGOs, including UNICEF, UNRWA, WFP, Oxfam, and Save the Children, implemented large-scale cash programmes despite Hamas’s longstanding control of Gaza’s markets and financial infrastructure. Hamas-affiliated money-changers imposed fees of 20– 40% on e-wallet withdrawals, effectively converting humanitarian cash into profit for the organisation. Aid groups, aware of Hamas’s diversion of commodities and market dominance, continued cash operations, creating a closed-loop “terrorist economy” in which aid was repeatedly captured.”
Given that one of the criteria for refusal of an organisation’s registration is that it “actively promotes delegitimization campaigns against the State of Israel”, BBC audiences would no doubt have found it helpful to be reminded that Save the Children is an IPC partner and thus was party to that organisation’s dubious allegations concerning famine in the Gaza Strip as well as to additional PR campaigns, including in the years before the current war.
Although Gritten provides a partial list of “grounds for rejection”, including “Calling for a boycott of Israel or committing to participate in one”, he does not tell his readers that Save the Children has been campaigning for years to have the IDF included on a UN blacklist of ‘grave violators’, has advocated for an arms embargo and has participated in ‘lawfare’ against Israel.
The other NGO named by Gritten in his report is Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
“Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – which supports six public hospitals and runs two field hospitals in Gaza, and has treated hundreds of thousands of patients over the past year – meanwhile said it was among the INGOs still waiting to obtain registration.
“With Gaza’s health system already destroyed, independent and experienced humanitarian organisations losing access to respond would be a disaster for Palestinians,” a statement said.
“MSF calls on the Israeli authorities to ensure that INGOs can maintain and continue their impartial and independent response in Gaza. The already restricted humanitarian response cannot be further dismantled.””
Yet again, Gritten has nothing to tell BBC audiences about MSF’s previous campaigning on this topic and others, its employment of supporters and members of terrorist organisations or its promotion of the al Ahli hospital libel.
Neither does he inform his readers that both the organisations he quotes in this report appear in Hamas documents recording its manipulation of foreign NGOs.
Gritten’s report includes eight paragraphs of quotes from – and a link to – a statement put out by “The Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory” which he describes as “a forum that brings together UN agencies and more than 200 local and international organisations”. Readers are not however told the names of those NGOs. An NGO Monitor report from 2021 notes that:
“OCHA-oPt coordinates with and funds terror-linked NGOs, including groups with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. Several officials working for OCHA oPt-partner NGOs have been arrested for their leading roles in carrying out PFLP terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) – which lobbies against anti-terror regulations and includes PFLP-linked groups among its members – is a key member of the OCHA-oPt Humanitarian Country Team (HCT).”
For years the BBC has failed to provide its audiences with accurate and impartial information about organisations sporting the self-assigned ‘humanitarian’ label, including on the topic of their “particular viewpoints”.
BBC audiences cannot hope to understand the story that Gritten purports to report if they are not provided with relevant information about the organisations that are its topic. The fact that the BBC has – for the second time – avoided the issue of the problematic records of some of the NGOs concerned shows that it is more interested in promoting their PR campaign than it is in reporting the story accurately and impartially.
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