On April 15th BBC News website’s editors thought that it would be a good idea to facilitate the worldwide amplification of unverified stories told by a convicted terrorist to his lawyer, who had communicated the claims to the terrorist’s family who, in turn, recounted them to a BBC reporter.
Readers of a report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell titled “Prominent Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti assaulted three times in a month, family says” are told that:
“The family of the most prominent Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, says that he has again been subjected to physical violence behind bars in Israel.
Arab Barghouti told the BBC he was “shocked and appalled” to hear from his father’s Israeli lawyer that he had been assaulted three times by Israeli prison guards in the past month.
The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) said that “the allegations made are false and baseless”.”
Additional media outlets which chose to promote the same story on the same day included Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, the pro-Hamas outlet MEMO, the Qatar-linked Middle East Eye, the Qatari-owned outlet The New Arab and the Guardian. Coincidentally or not, the Palestinian mission to the UN promoted a “free Marwan” campaign on the same day.
Yolande Knell goes on to tell readers that:
“Marwan Barghouti was convicted by an Israeli court of planning deadly attacks against Israeli civilians and is currently serving five life sentences plus 40 years.”
Knell’s account fails to provide BBC audiences with the following details concerning Barghouti’s conviction:
“On June 6, 2004, the Tel Aviv-Yafo District Court convicted Marwan Barghouti and sentenced for the following offenses:
A. The deliberate murder of five people in three terrorist attacks carried out in 2001-2002: a shooting attack in Givat Ze’ev in Jerusalem, in which a woman was murdered (January 15, 2002); a shooting attack on the Jerusalem-Ma’aleh Adumim Highway, in which a Greek monk was murdered (June 12, 2001); and a shooting-hand grenade attack at the Sea Food Market Restaurant in central Tel Aviv, in which three people were murdered and 25 wounded (March 5, 2002). The verdict stated that Marwan Barghouti was personally involved in the terrorist attacks and therefore received consecutive life sentences. […]
B. Attempted attack: Marwan Barghouti gave permission to carry out a car bombing suicide attack. The order was to carry out the attack in Judea and Samaria, but the car blew up near the Malha Mall in Jerusalem, where the terrorists apparently intended to carry out the attack (March 26, 2002); killing the two terrorists. For his complicity in the attempted attack, Barghouti was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
C. Activity and membership in terrorist organizations: Marwan Barghouti was convicted of heading a terrorist apparatus that carried out attacks, including those in which Barghouti was not personally involved. Barghouti provided the planners and perpetrators of the attacks with assistance in transferring funds and weapons. The verdict stated the following: “He instigated and incentivized his men to continue carrying out deadly terrorist attacks; and in every possible way supported the heads of terrorist squads who planned or carried out the attacks […]” For his membership and activity in a terrorist organization, Barghouti was sentenced to 20 years in prison.”
Knell continues:
“He was arrested exactly 24 years ago, at the height of the Palestinians’ second intifada, or uprising. He had set up the Tanzim, an armed wing of the Fatah political faction.”
Knell fails to provide BBC audiences with relevant information concerning the establishment of the Tanzim (by Yasser Arafat) or its record of terrorist activity. Likewise, she has nothing to tell her readers about Barghouti’s leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades or the role he played in igniting the Second Intifada.
“On September 28, 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. About 1,400 Palestinians were waiting for him, among them Marwan Barghouti and Hussein al-Sheikh, the two rival Fatah leaders in Judea and Samaria. Palestinian demonstrators shouted anti-Sharon slogans and threw stones. The clashes worsened after Sharon and his entourage had already left. The riots spread to various parts of east Jerusalem, and more than 50 Palestinians and policemen were wounded. However, the organizers of the demonstration on the Temple Mount, including Barghouti, regarded it as a failure. Nevertheless, disappointment did not dull his motivation, because at that early stage he had already identified the potential inherent in the tension, both for himself and his allies in the Tanzim. “This is our opportunity,” he told his close friend Ziyad Abu Ein, “we have to act swiftly and strongly to organize demonstrations in Jerusalem.”
After Sharon left the Temple Mount, Palestinian operatives held a two-hour meeting to discuss how to spread the struggle to all the PA territories. According to Barghouti, “The night before Sharon’s visit I participated in a panel discussion on the local TV station and exploited the opportunity to encourage the public to go to al-Aqsa mosque in the morning. It was unthinkable that Sharon could go to al-Haram al Sharif [i.e., the Temple Mount]…and leave untouched. I went to al-Aqsa in the morning…we tried to cause clashes, but failed because of differences of opinion, which arose all the time with others in the al-Aqsa mosque compound.”
Friday, September 29, 2000, the following day, Palestinians rioted on the Temple Mount. The riots began when Muslim worshippers threw previously stockpiled stones, iron bars and Molotov cocktails at Israeli policemen. Seven policemen were killed and more than a hundred wounded. Marwan Barghouti and Hussein al-Sheikh held a rally in Ramallah. Barghouti and Sheikh Hassan Yusuf (Hamas leader in Judea and Samaria) spoke before a crowd of about 5,000 Palestinians. The news from the Temple Mount inflamed them and a crowd marched towards the “Judea and Samaria Junction” north of Ramallah to clash with IDF soldiers. However, Marwan Barghouti and his aide Ahmed Barghouti rushed away to get to a meeting in Taybeh with Israeli Arab leaders. En route they used their phones to dictate the first notice of the new uprising to their office in al-Bireh. Thus the second intifada had begun.”
Knell continues:
“Opinion polls indicate that despite his imprisonment, Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader. He remains a member of the Fatah Central Committee.”
She fails to inform BBC audiences that Barghouti was elected to the Fatah Central Committee in 2009 while already serving his prison term or that Fatah recently announced that terrorists who have been imprisoned for more than 20 years will be granted leadership positions, as members in the upcoming Eighth Fatah Conference.
Knell goes on to amplify a politically motivated but redundant comparison:
“Many Palestinians view the 66-year-old as their equivalent of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and point to his ability to unite different political factions and his past rapport with Israeli leaders.”
Knell promotes a link to a social media post from Barghouti’s lawyer promoting unverified allegations against the Israeli Prison Service which was put out on April 14th. She does not, however, bother to inform her readers that Ben Marmarelli identifies (among other things) as “Anti-Zionist” or that he has previously made unsubstantiated claims relating to the IPS. In fact, the BBC interviewed Marmarelli last year on precisely that topic but apparently decided not to use the material.
Now, however, the BBC has chosen to promote claims made by the lawyer who last December described it as “pro-genocide and pro-apartheid”. The fact that Yolande Knell did not confirm the allegations – and failed to provide audiences with the full range of information concerning the convicted terrorist who made them – apparently does not worry the corporation that claims to provide “news you can trust”.
Update: Ten days after the original appearance of Yolande Knell’s report, it was amended – apparently following complaints from members of the public – to include further details. The amended version tells readers that:
“Marwan Barghouti was convicted by an Israeli court in 2004 for his role in directing deadly attacks on Israeli civilians during the Palestinians’ second intifada, or uprising. He led the Tanzim, an armed wing of the Fatah political faction.
He was found guilty of the murder of four Israelis and a Greek monk, attempted murder and belonging to a terrorist organisation and is currently serving five consecutive life sentences plus 40 years.”
A footnote has also been added to the report:
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