Why has the Middle East peace process degenerated into undeclared warfare, with Palestinian suicide bombers targeting Israelis, and Israel apparently contemplating unprecedented retaliation? You wouldn't be aware of the facts if you wouldn't be aware of them if you got your information from much of the Western media.
The BBC's correspondent in Gaza reportedly declared at a recent Hamas event that reporters and the media are "waging the campaign [against Israel] shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people..." (Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2001)
In a remarkable Dec.12 interview with Palestinian human rights campaigner Bassem Eid, BBC anchor Clair Bolderson appeared indignant at Eid's contention that Palestinians should stop shooting at Israelis, and should instead – despite its flaws – continue with the peace process.
BBC World Service reporter Paul Adams was assaulted by a Palestinian mob as he was covering an apparently accidental explosion in the Bethlehem headquarters of a Palestinian militia. The attack on Adams is part of a troubling pattern of Palestinian attacks on Western journalists, which apparently seeks to ensure pro-Palestinian coverage of the current disturbances. Just as troubling as the campaign of intimidation is the media's abject refusal to cover it.
An October BBC NewsHour report contained an internal contradiction regarding Palestinian weaponry. In an interview with BBC reporter Claire Bolderson, the head of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, claimed that Palestinian police in Ramallah were forced "under the pressure" of the surrounding Palestinian mob to turn over two captured Israeli soldiers to the crowd, which then murdered the Israelis in the center of Ramallah. Bolderson asks Hazia how the mob was able to overcome the armed police. Hazia responded that the Palestinian public was even more heavily armed than the police.
The trust that listeners place in the BBC's crisply-accented reporters would seemingly be justified by the network's Royal Charter, which requires it to be "a credible, unbiased, reliable, accurate, balanced and independent news service." Unfortunately, the long tradition of anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish bias does seem to have had an impact on the BBC's Middle East coverage.
June 5, 1997 marked thirty years since Israel won the Six Day War and the anniversary prompted a rash of news stories about a victory that brought the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem under Israeli control.
