One week in April: BBC News and Israel

Sometimes on social media it’s the small fish who get the big stories right. “Coverage of Israel,” wrote rationalpolicy.com, “is one of the most egregious areas of media bias, and perhaps the most dangerous. It often seems like mainstream outlets are willing to jump through hoops to excuse Palestinian atrocities and blame the Israeli victims.”

Over the past week, the big players, including BBC News, have let their viewers, listeners and readers down. To find out what’s really been going on in Israel and, in particular, to get a proper sense of perspective, you had to turn to individual voices or to small websites like CAMERA UK. They have got the story right and the BBC, CNN, The Guardian and others have not.

For example, how many times have the big media players explained that the majority of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces over the past 18 months were not civilians but terrorists (invariably young men), often in the act of committing violence? How often have BBC, Sky News or CNN reporters pointed out exactly which terrorist organisations dead Palestinians belonged to? And, crucially, how often have these reporters tried to establish some kind of equivalence between Palestinians killed by Israelis (almost invariably terrorists or, during bigger conflicts, civilians used as human shields) and Israelis or foreign tourists (almost invariably innocent civilians) killed by Palestinian terrorists?

That’s the big picture. But so often the devil is in the details. On the 10 pm News on BBC 1 on 11 April, the BBC reporter Lucy Williamson omitted to mention that Lucy Dee and her two young daughters were killed by Palestinian terrorists. Why did she and her producer think this was not worth mentioning? Did she think someone else might have fired twenty bullets at three British Jewish civilians at close range?

On 11 April another BBC reporter, Raffi Berg, wrote on the BBC News website: “A British-Israeli woman has died after a suspected Palestinian gun attack on Friday, in which two of her daughters were also killed.” “A suspected [sic] Palestinian gun attack”? Who else was on Raffi Berg’s list of suspects?

And if it was not a Palestinian gunman, why were young Palestinian men handing out sweets in celebration of these murders?

The day before, Lucy Williamson and her BBC colleague Marita Moloney wrote on the BBC News website, “Maia and Rina Dee, 20 and 15, were killed on Friday when suspected [sic] Palestinian gunmen opened fire on them in their car in the Jordan Valley.” They wrote in the same article, “The attack came amid soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions and violence.” They didn’t mention which acts of “soaring violence” had been committed by Israelis, except as self-defence against missile attacks from Lebanon and Syria. And they also wrote in the same article, “Both incidents [the shooting of three British Jewish women and an Italian Christian] took place hours after Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes in southern Lebanon and the Gaza strip on targets belonging to the Palestinian military group Hamas.” What they didn’t mention was that this was after missile attacks on civilian targets in Israel from the Palestinian military group Hamas.

One of the recurring themes in British media coverage has been that certain Israeli actions have provoked Palestinian violence: in particular, anything involving the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem or actions by Israeli settlers, or, indeed the very existence of Jewish settlements. But you often have to turn to social media to see footage of young masked Muslim men playing football inside the mosque or gathering rocks as weapons, which provides a very graphic and different context.

As for the Israeli settlers: how often have BBC viewers or listeners been told about the many massacres of Jews by Arabs in British Mandate Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s, before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948? Or the major Palestinian terror attacks on Jews in Israel between 1948 and 1956, years before these settlers arrived? Jewish civilians were shot dead by Arab terrorists in Israel 1 January 1952, 9 and 11 June 1953, 12 October 1953, 17 March 1954, 2 January 1955, 24 March 1955, 7 and 11 April 1956, 23 September 1956 and on through the 1950s and beyond.

Then there are curious newspaper headlines. The Sunday Times ran this headline: “Belfast leaves violence behind [really?] while stubborn Israel burns.” (9 April) If only Israel weren’t so “stubborn”, the paper implies, the terrorism would stop.

Or contrast this news report about the murder of the Dees by Caroline Davies (plus agency material) in The Guardian on the same day: “Their car was driven off the road after being shot at by gunmen in an incident which has been described as a terror attack [my emphasis],” with this: “On Saturday Israeli troops shot dead a 20-year-old Palestinian man in the West Bank, news agency AFP reported.”  In one case, an incident “has beendescribed as a terror incident”. In the other, “Israeli troops shot dead” a “Palestinian man” (note, not a “terrorist”, or even a “gunman”, though nearly every

Palestinian fatality this year has been a member of a terrorist organisation).

The terrible murders of Lucy Dee and her young daughters are exceptional because of the amount of news coverage they have received. But on 7 April CAMERA UK pointed out that “throughout the first quarter of 2023 the BBC News website reported 1.98% of the terror attacks against Israelis that actually took place.” Why would that be?

Here are quite a few different kinds of misrepresentation. First, not mentioning that the perpetrators were Palestinian terrorists. Second, implying that perhaps the perpetrators were not actually terrorists in the first place. Third, blaming the victims. If only there were no settlements, even though we know that Arabs have been killing Jewish civilians on and off for the past hundred years, and back into the 19^th century, long before there were settlements. If only Israel was not so “stubborn”. Or just miss out key footage so that viewers and listeners are never told or shown that young Muslims are playing football and gathering rocks inside a famous mosque.

It’s not just the BBC, of course. Other TV news organisations and newspapers have misled viewers and readers over the past weeks. But many of us still think of the BBC as the most reliable news source there is. Except, perhaps, when it comes to Israel.

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