NBC's Chantal Da Silva omits critical context and facts regarding the ceasefire in Gaza, painting Israel as the sole cause of the ceasefire’s complications in Gaza, and blurring Hamas’s responsibility for the continued conflict in the coastal enclave.
The New York Post wrongly alleges that "Lebanon" says it will not honor the ceasefire agreement signed June 26 by both Israel and Lebanon. In fact, the rejectionist comments came from Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri, who is not tantamount to "Lebanon."
Mirroring its slanted Gaza Strip coverage, BBC strips Hezbollah tunnels from its Lebanon reporting, thereby falsely presenting Israeli steps against the terror infrastructure as "war crimes" targeting civilian towns.
Did Hezbollah accept the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire or reject it? Is the terror group willing to abide by its terms or is it refusing to disarm? BBC can't seem to decide.
Remarkably, Torbey – who only utters the word Hezbollah once in her entire report – has nothing to tell BBC audiences about the terrorist organization’s rejection of Lebanon’s direct negotiations with Israel or the threats toward the Lebanese president and government from Hezbollah officials that have been voiced both before and since the ceasefire came into effect.
Writing in The Times, Beirut-based Sally Hayden seemed to go out of her way to avoid the topic of Hezbollah fighters killed in the war. One man mentioned by name, described by Hayden only as a "paramedic," is actually identified as a "martyred jihad fighter" in the tombstone on the accompanying photo.
If BBC Swahili, BBC Turkish, BBC Indonesia, and BBC Hausa could provide an informative profile of Iranian negotiator Mohammad Ghalibaf – in some cases two weeks before the talks in Islamabad – then the corporation’s English-language services should surely have been able to follow suit.
Two different interviews, one with a Pakistani diplomat and one with an Israeli diplomat, showcase how the BBC uses language and framing to construct a narrative. This allows the corporation to purport to show both sides of a conflict, while presenting those sides in a way to whitewash one and vilify the other.
Despite clear statements from both the US and Israel that the ceasefire agreement did not include Lebanon, the BBC Today program's framing and language created an image of an out-of-control Israel risking the fragile peace, while never clearly informing listeners that Hezbollah is a proxy Iranian military occupying Lebanon which has, once again, started a war with Israel on behalf of the Islamic regime.
