BBC Omits Inequities Over Gilad Shalit Release

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC seems to have a 'strange' way of headlining this story on the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap.
On the Yahoo page for BBC Mid-East News it's billed as:
Mid-East prisoner swap welcomed
and on their actual webpage the headline is:
Gilad Shalit: Israel and Palestinians welcome deal

Whoever wrote the article would have had a hard job keeping a straight face, especially with the tongue in their cheek the way it must have been, where exchanging one Israeli prisoner for over 1000 Palestinian prisoners is really seen by them as a natural rate of exchange. No indication of the massive disparity, the way - you know - when they report on so many more Palestinians dying in raids compared to how many Israelis they killed beforehand to make it necessary.

'Balance' BBC Style

Israelis and Palestinians have welcomed the announcement of a deal to free captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Crowds of Israelis took to the streets of Jerusalem in celebration at the news, while similar scenes were played out among Palestinians in Gaza.

The deal was announced on Tuesday by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Under the terms, more than 1,000 Palestinians and Sgt Shalit, held since 2006, will be freed, beginning in days.

Sgt Shalit, aged 19 at the time, was snatched in a cross-border raid by Hamas militants who tunnelled from Gaza into Israel.

On-off negotiations for his release have taken place for several years.

'Tough decision'

At an emergency meeting on Tuesday night, Israel's cabinet voted overwhelmingly to accept a final deal.

"This is a tough decision," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I believe we reached the best deal we could at this time of turbulence in the Middle East. I do not know if in the forseeable future we will be able to reach a better deal, or any deal at all."

In Jerusalem, hundreds of young Israelis - many carrying pictures of Sgt Shalit - danced and sang in the streets following the surprise announcement.

"I think it's a deal that should happen and I'm sorry it didn't happen many many years ago," a Jerusalem resident, Nachum, told Reuters news agency.

"Every human being must be for the deal."

Yarra Vinkler, the girlfriend of Gilad Shalit's brother, told the BBC the family were relieved.

"We just congratulated the government, we thank them that it finally happened."

In Gaza, Hamas said tens of thousands of people took to the streets in celebration over the imminent Palestinian prisoner release.

Witnesses described jubilant crowds firing guns into the air and honking car horns.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, speaking from exile in Syria, said the deal was "a great achievement, a qualitative success".

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the agreement "a cause for national celebration", Reuters reported.

The breakthrough was also welcomed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who telephoned the father of Sgt Shalit, an Israeli-French national, to express his "joy that Gilad will soon be released", AFP news agency said.

Exclusions

The BBC's Jon Donnison in Jerusalem says both the Israeli government and Hamas will try to make political capital out of the deal.

In Israel most families have relatives in the military and the plight of Gilad Shalit, one of the best known faces in the country, has touched Israeli hearts, he says.

Gilad Shalit has been held by Palestinian militants for the past five years
Hamas argue his case is no different though from the 6,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, our correspondent adds.

Several high-profile Palestinian prisoners have been excluded from the release deal, a senior Israeli official said.

They include key Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti; Ahmed Saadat, found guilty of ordering the killing of Israel's tourism minister in 2001; and Hamas' Abdullah Barghouti.

Full details of the deal have not yet been released, but Mr Meshaal said Israel had agreed to free 1,027 prisoners - including 27 women.

Reports said the first 450 prisoners would be freed in the coming days, with the rest being released over the next two months.

There are about 6,000 Palestinians held by Israel - some of whom have been convicted of serious crimes, but others are being held without charge.

[Teddy Bear]

According to this AP article, while Gilad was in Egypt before being returned to Israel, and still surrounded by Hamas militants, a television interviewer asked him the following questions

Armed Hamas militants were in the area during the interview. One of them stood behind Schalit's chair, wearing a a black face mask, a green headband of the Qassam brigades — Hamas' military wing — and a video camera in his hand.
"You have known what it is like to be in captivity," the interviewer Shahira Amin said to Schalit. "There are more than 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Will you help campaign for their release?" she asked.
"What has the experience brought you? Has it made you stronger?" she asked at another point. And, brushing aside the fact Hamas had barred anyone from visiting Schalit, she asked him why he only gave one interview while held captive.

Still waiting to read anything from the BBC about the Egyptian state media instigating the violence against the Copts over the weekend, but how does the BBC report this Egyptian interview with Gilad which has 'shocked' and angered Israelis

In his first interview, Sgt Shalit told Egyptian TV he missed his friends and family. Looking drawn and pale, he said he hoped the exchange would help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Sgt Shalit was then transferred to the Kerem Shalom crossing between Egypt and Israel.

[Teddy Bear]

Turns out the BBC are more complicit in this Egyptian TV interview than I understood before. Here's what Melanie Phillips writes in the Daily Mail

Journalism? No, cruelty and propaganda


Hamas cameramen behind Shalit in Egypt interview
Associated Press

It appears that before Egypt passed Gilad Shalit over to the Israelis today, it subjected him to ten minutes of cruel and inhuman treatment of its own. Further details have emerged of the interview with Shalit carried out by Egyptian TV interviewer Shahira Amin. Many have commented on how ill at ease Shalit appeared during that interview. Now it turns out that standing behind Shalit’s chair as he answered the questions was a man in fatigues and wearing a black face mask and the green headband of the Qassam brigades – Hamas’s military wing – and with a video camera in his hand.

As for the interview itself, it was clearly designed as a propaganda exercise for the Arab masses. To ask such exploitative questions of someone who had just been released from five years’ captivity, who was clearly in a fragile state (he said so, and he subsequently fainted in the helicopter on the way to the Israeli air force base) and thus to delay his transfer to the Israelis and the reunion with his family, was itself a kind of torture. But as this report in the Jerusalem Post reveals, some of Amin’s questions amounted in addition to bullying which in the circumstances was as cruel and inhuman as it was, quite simply, totally detached from the reality of Shalit’s hermetically sealed captivity:

'“During all that time of captivity, you did just one video to tell the world and your family that you're alive,” she tells the soldier. “Why just once? Why didn't it happen again?” Rather than letting him answer, however, Schalit’s Hamas minder-cum-interpreter scolds Amin for asking the same question twice (a peculiar accusation, given the footage shows the question hadn’t been asked before).

‘The resulting argument between interviewer and minder is one of the interview's more regrettable scenes. Amin says Schalit appears unwell, and “that's why I'm asking the question again” - as if drilling him repeatedly will have a salutary effect. The question is itself absurd, roughly tantamount to asking a hostage victim why he or she didn't escape sooner.

‘... Amin proceeds to ask Schalit what “lessons” he learned in captivity. After asking for the question to be repeated, he says he believes a deal could have been reached sooner. Here the Hamas minder renders his response as praise for reaching a deal “in such short time”- a mistranslation repeated by the BBC’s own interpreter.

‘”Gilad, you know what it’s like to be in captivity," Amin continues as the painful charade drags on. “There are more than 4,000 Palestinians still languishing in Israeli jails. Will you help campaign for their release?”

‘Schalit's answer, after a few seconds’ stunned silence, is superior: “I'd be very happy if they were released,"”he says, then adds the caveat, “provided they don't return to fighting Israel.”’

‘Again, the Egyptian interpreter fails to translate the sentence's second clause, and again the omission is repeated by the BBC's translator, though he too was apparently translating from Hebrew in real-time. ‘I will be very happy for the prisoners to go free, so that they can be able to go back to their families, loved ones and territory. It will give me great happiness if this happens,’ the BBC’s interpreter relays.’

Ah, the BBC. In the video clip on this BBC News web page, Jon Donnison interviews one of the freed Hamas terrorists, Ahmad Abu Taha, and says to him:

‘You are 31 years old, ten years in prison, serving a life sentence for being a member of Hamas. I mean, how do you feel today?”

But in 2002, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote brief descriptions of terrorist detainees it had captured including Ahmad Abu Taha. This is what the MFA said about him:

‘Ahmed Abd Al Karim Ali Abu Taha was born in 1980 and resides in Ramallah. Abu Taha was involved in preparing explosives for Hamas terrorists in Ramallah, including the car bomb that exploded in Giva’at Ze’ev in Jerusalem on 29 July 2001. A member of the Ibrahim Abu Rub and Ballal Baraguti organizations, he transported the suicide bomber Ra’ad Baraguti from Ramallah to Jerusalem, where he exploded on Hanevi’im Street on 4 September 2001 and injured 14 people.’

So it seems he was jailed for rather more than merely being a member of Hamas. But hey, what’s a little thing like the facts when you’re interviewing a Hamas celebrity? And why spoil the story of the party atmosphere in Gaza with the disobliging news that the happy and smiling Hamas celebrity in question had been instrumental in terrorist attacks against Israelis?

At a meeting in Washington DC today the BBC’s Chief Operating Officer, Caroline Thomson, was hymning the BBC’s values and boasting that 54 per cent of people in the UK think the BBC is trustworthy and 58 per cent that it is accurate. This was, she said, an ‘awesome responsibility’ to live up to. It would be interesting to know whether the Donnison interview meets her exacting standards.

Still, it could be worse: the BBC might have employed Shahira Amin.

[Teddy Bear]

Two You-Tube videos of the Egyptian interview that you can compare. The first is the one heard on Israel Channel One TV, which while in Hebrew gives a clear indication of the tone used by the interviewer, and the stress and anxiety on Gilad in trying to answer. Bear in mind you cannot see the Hamas guard directly behind him, but Gilad clearly knows he's there, and he's not 'free' yet.


This second video is the one shown by the BBC, which mutes the interviewer and the response from Gilad. It is also here that the BBC translator purposefully omits the real response from Gilad which Melanie refers to above.

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC now have an article on the interview following Israeli criticism of it. It does tell us that Militants from Hamas, one of them wearing a black face mask, were in the area as the interview was set up. So why didn't the BBC make the public aware of that at the time?

They also quote the interviewer as saying;
Shahira Amin said she had not forced the interview on Sgt Shalit, and that it was important to let people see him.
"I did not take advantage of Gilad Shalit as Israeli media is reporting," she wrote.
"Had he said he wouldn't do it, I WOULD NOT have pressed him. I have all the compassion for him and wish him the BEST."

So you have somebody who has been kept in fear and solitary for the last 5 years, and probably imagined each day was his last. Knowing that his captors are still armed and in the room, she questions him about things he probably has no idea about, and is clearly uncomfortable answering. Anxious to get back home to safety and see his family and friends, and she tries to make political gain by it. This is her idea of compassion, and this is what the BBC would have preferred to keep quiet about until it became a major issue.

They still haven't acknowledged the question put about freeing the Palestinian prisoners to which Gilad replied with the provision that they never tried to attack Israel again. I cannot imagine if it would have been Israel treating a Palestinian prisoner with the same 'compassion', that the BBC wouldn't have been on their case - BIG TIME.
This is exactly what we've come to expect from the BBC, only the tales change, but the bias remains constant.

Gilad Shalit release: Shahira Amin defends interview

The Egyptian journalist who interviewed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit just after Hamas freed him has defended herself against Israeli criticism.

Shahira Amin said she had not forced the interview on Sgt Shalit, and that it was important to let people see him.

Israeli officials and commentators have questioned the ethics of the interview.

Sgt Shalit was freed on Tuesday as part of an elaborate prisoner exchange. Looking frail, he was interviewed just after crossing from Gaza to Egypt.

Militants from Hamas, one of them wearing a black face mask, were in the area as the interview was set up.

Afterwards, Sgt Shalit was handed to Israeli authorities, given a medical check and allowed to call his family.

During the interview Ms Amin asked Sgt Shalit if he would campaign for the release of more than 5,000 Palestinian prisoners still in Israeli jails.

She also appeared to seek credit for Egypt, stating that Egyptian authorities had mediated the release and asking Sgt Shalit why he thought the mediation had worked.

Unnamed Israeli officials later protested that the interview was forced on him and "violated all the basic ethical rules of journalism".

They also reportedly claimed that the interview violated the terms for Sgt Shalit's release.

'Compassion'
One Israeli TV commentator, Raviv Drucker, said the interview "wasn't the most sensitive thing to do", while news presenter Yonit Levy called it "borderline torture".

"I did not take advantage of Gilad Shalit as Israeli media is reporting," she wrote.

"Had he said he wouldn't do it, I WOULD NOT have pressed him. I have all the compassion for him and wish him the BEST."

Earlier, she told the BBC: "I know that he was very eager to go home and see his family, but it only took a few minutes and it was important to let the world know that he was all right.

"It was important but I didn't force him into it."

Sgt Shalit was a 19-year-old tank crewman when he was captured in June 2006.

Israel freed 477 Palestinian prisoners, allowing most to go back to Gaza and the West Bank, in return for his release.

The deal will eventually see a total of 1,027 prisoners freed.

[Teddy Bear]

Honest Reporting also brings out an article critical of the BBC in how they glorify the terrorists released by Israel in this deal

The BBC’s Heroic Terrorists
October 24, 2011 14:46 by Simon Plosker

The BBC has a vacuous idea of balanced reporting. While it is happy to pass judgement on Israel in almost entirely negative terms, value judgements and even values themselves are dispensed with when it comes to pushing the Palestinian narrative.

How then to explain the latest piece of BBC coverage of the Gilad Shalit prisoner deal, focused on the Palestinian side? In Viewpoint: ‘Released Palestinian prisoners are heroes’, Nasser Ziad is allowed to spew what amounts to terrorist propaganda.

According to Ziad, the Palestinian prisoners and their families have been “reunited after years of unlawful separation and inhumane treatment.”

Is being convicted by due and lawful process and imprisoned for the murders of innocent Israelis really “unlawful separation”? Compare the healthy-looking Palestinians upon their release with the gaunt, malnourished Gilad Shalit, deprived of even sunlight for over five years. Who exactly has been treated inhumanely?

In Ziad’s eyes, the victims of the story are not those Israelis targeted by Hamas terrorist Omar al-Ghoul but al-Ghoul’s son and wife:

It has been difficult to grow up without getting to know his dad. “It’s like you are told you have a father but you have never seen him,” Ibrahim told me.

There is so much catching up to do that he still does not know what stories he and his father will be able to share. “Let’s see if I will get used to him quickly,” he says.

Ibrahim’s mother, Suheir al-Ghoul, has done her best to raise her children and look after 18 grandchildren in her husband’s absence.

If anyone needs reminding who the real victims are, watch this short video highlighting some of the horrific crimes carried out by some of those Palestinians now enjoying their freedom.


As for the terrorists themselves:

Suheir has always said that her husband Omar is not a murderer, but a hero. He was fighting for our freedom and our dignity. He never wanted to fight anyone but living under the Israeli occupation is very tough. …

As a Palestinian, I also perceive Omar and all the Palestinian prisoners as national heroes. They have sacrificed themselves for the Palestinian struggle.

Thus the BBC gives a someone a free hand to promote a narrative that supports or excuses terrorism as equal to that of the Israeli narrative. But while the BBC is consistently critical of Israel, Palestinian support for terror is treated with kid gloves.

It may very well be that Ziad’s views are representative of the Palestinian population at large. If that is the case, why then did the BBC decide that a corresponding Israeli Viewpoint should be given over to someone opposed to the Shalit deal? This when some 80% of Israelis polled were broadly supportive of the terms of the exchange.

While opposition to the deal is perfectly legitimate, it was not representative of the Israeli public and continues a trend whereby the BBC interviews Israelis who represent unrepresentative opinions or those highly critical of the mainstream.

In the final analysis, however, the BBC has given an uncritical voice to for Palestinian terrorist propaganda.