BBC Delays Reports on Gaza Rockets

[Teddy Bear]

For over 4 hours I've been waiting to see when the BBC would report on the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. The only article related to this is when Israel attacked sites in Gaza, killing several militants, who were preparing to fire rockets.

Associated Press has covered this story since 6pm showing the exchange of fire Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire, 5 killed The latest update 30 minutes ago includes the death of an Israeli from the Gaza rockets

Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire, 8 killed
By IAN DEITCH - Associated Press | AP – 36 mins ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft struck at Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday who responded with a volley of rockets which rained on southern Israeli towns, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Palestinian officials said seven militants were killed, while on the Israeli side one civilian was killed and four others were wounded.

The BBC however have had the same article since this afternoon despite updating their Mid-East webpage 30 minutes ago. This only shows the Israeli attack on Gaza. Militants killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza. The only mention they make of any rocket attacks is when they state The Israeli air force has confirmed it carried out the attack. It said the militants were preparing to launch rockets into Israel.


I presume they will eventually cover the rocket attack, but I've no doubt they will word the headline in as negative towards Israel as possible.

[Teddy Bear]

Melanie Phillips has also noticed this current omission by the BBC and has just written an article on it in the Daily Mail

The BBC airbrushes out Palestinian terror attacks -- again

During the past 24 hours, Israel has been under sustained rocket attack from Gaza. Some 35 rockets and mortar shells were fired deep into the country, killing one man in Ashkelon and injuring four other people elsewhere. In Ashdod, vehicles were set on fire and a school --fortunately empty -- was hit. The rocket barrage followed an IDF strike on Gaza which killed five members of Islamic Jihad – and which itself was targeted at the IJ terrorist cell responsible for launching a Grad rocket that exploded in Ashdod last Wednesday.

This, however, is how BBC News has reported the past day’s events on its website:

'Militants killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza

'Five Palestinian militants have been killed in a number of Israeli air strikes on the south of the Gaza Strip. The violence is the most serious since a major prisoner exchange deal earlier this month between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that governs in Gaza.

'The militants were killed at an Islamic Jihad training site in Rafah in the south of the strip. Doctors say at least 10 other people were injured in the strike. The Israeli air force has confirmed it carried out the attack. It said the militants were preparing to launch rockets into Israel.

'An Israeli army spokesman confirmed to the AFP news agency that aircraft had attacked other sites. A statement said the Israeli military had “attacked three terrorist sites in the Gaza Strip as well as an arms factory in the south of the territory”.

'...The violence comes less than two weeks after a major prisoner exchange which saw about 500 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails in a swap for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Some of those released were Islamic Jihad members.

'A further 500 Palestinian prisoners are due to be freed as part of the deal later this year. BBC Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says an escalation in violence could jeopardise those releases.'

No mention of the Palestinian rocket attack on Ashdod last Wednesday. No mention of the 35 rocket attacks on Israel during the past day, nor the Israeli killed in Ashkelon. Instead, the BBC has given the false impression on its website that the Israelis initiated the attacks --and the only casualties it reported were Palestinian.

This website report was timed as ‘last updated’ at 1412 on Saturday. But even on the midnight Radio Four news bulletin just now there was still no mention of the rocket attacks on Israel over the past day, nor the murdered Israeli, nor of last Wednesday’s Grad attack – merely a vague and weaselly reference to Israel accusing the Palestinians of ‘carrying out recent rocket attacks’.

This reporting is simply disgraceful and inexcusable. Such selective manipulation of the facts and consequent misrepresentation of cause and effect reverses victim and aggressor in the Middle East, serves the cause of Arab propaganda and foments public hatred of Israel, all with untold consequences around the world.

As has been observed for years, the BBC’s reporting on Israel is out of control. The BBC is clearly incapable of putting its own house in order; its abuse of journalism on this most sensitive of issues is now so egregious that it is surely a matter that should be raised in Parliament.

[Teddy Bear]

Now we've gone directly from the original Militants killed in Gaza Strikes to this one New Israeli air strike into Gaza after 'ceasefire'
Even after 'peace-loving' Egypt brokered a ceasefire, the aggressive Israel launched another strike on peaceful Gaza.

Only way down in the article to we get to
'Israel said at 38 rockets and mortars were fired into southern Israel since Saturday, killing one man in the coastal city of Ashkelon. Four other people were wounded by the attacks.'

Then further down we get to 'The spokesman said that the first attack, about midday local time, specifically targeted a cell responsible for a long-range rocket attack on Wednesday that exploded deep inside Israel. That attack had caused no casualties.'

So ultimately we get to the real sequence of events - but in no way are these headlines intended to convey this at all.

[Teddy Bear]

Melanie Phillips has produced another article in the Daily Mail as an update to her original one on the subject.

Journalism, propaganda and moral confusion (part two)

As I noted earlier today in an update on my previous post, the BBC News website finally reported yesterday’s attacks on Israel at 04:10 this morning. Anyone going to the BBC website a little later, however, will have seen this item, last updated at 08:38 GMT:

‘Ten killed in Israel-Gaza attacks

An Israeli man has been killed by a rocket attack from Gaza after nine Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli air strikes on the south of the Gaza Strip.'

This was of course quite wrong. The Israeli was murdered in Ashkelon by rocket fire from Gaza following a sequence of events which started last Wednesday with a Grad rocket attack from Gaza on Ashdod. That was followed by an Israeli strike on Gaza targeted at the Islamic Jihad cell which Israel said had carried out Wednesday’s attack and which, it said, was preparing to fire more long-range rockets. That strike in turn was used as the excuse for the barrage of rockets from Gaza yesterday which killed the Israeli in Ashdod.

So anyone clicking on the BBC News home page and just scanning the headlines there would have received the entirely false impression that the Israeli had been killed because the Palestinians were retaliating to aggressive Israeli attacks. Curiously, however, the full story accessed through this particular 04:10 link on the home page appeared to have been corrected at some previous stage, reading instead:

‘Israel-Gaza exchange rocket and air strikes killing 10

'An Israeli man has been killed by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants had vowed to retaliate after five militants were killed by an Israeli air strike on the south of the Gaza Strip. Another four Palestinians were killed in further Israeli air raids after the rocket attacks.’

Even so, only further down this story did the BBC report the Palestinian attack that had provoked the first Israeli strike:

‘The [Israeli] spokesman said that the first attack, about midday local time, specifically targeted a cell responsible for a long-range rocket attack on Wednesday, that exploded deep inside Israel. That attack had caused no casualties.’

At 0905 GMT, the website story was updated again to this:

‘Gaza-Israel ceasefire hopes after 10 killed.

‘There are hopes for a ceasefire between Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and Israel after violence on Saturday. Egypt tried to broker an end to a day of retaliatory rocket and air attacks which killed nine Palestinian militants and an Israeli civilian in Ashkelon.’

In this version, Wednesday’s initial Grad attack is way down the story. Despite all the serial alternations, the overall and misleading impression from this coverage over the past 24 hours is therefore, at best, of ‘tit-for-tat’ violence and, at worst, of Israeli aggression. Either way, the truth of what actually happened has been obscured – and hostility and hatred towards Israel for seeking to defend itself against rocket attacks aimed at killing Israeli innocents will be ratcheted up yet further.

If ordinary people complain to the BBC about its Middle East coverage they seem to get nowhere. The doughty defender of Israel and the west, Dr Denis MacEoin, was horrified by an article published on the BBC website following the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for more than 1400 Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails. The article, matched against one by the father of an Israeli girl murdered in a Palestinian terrorist attack, called the released Palestinian terrorists ‘heroes’. This provoked Dr MacEoin to write a complaint to the BBC. Here’s part of it:

‘I was aghast to read a viewpoint piece by Palestinian Nasser Ziad, ‘Released Palestinian prisoners are heroes’. Even in a free society, there must be limits to the kind of opinion presented, especially on an established website such as yours. The author argues that the Palestinian prisoners released as part of a deal for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit are heroes because of their struggle for the Palestinian cause. This is truly disgusting.

‘The prisoners included women like Wafa Biss and Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi planned a suicide attack on the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001. 15 people including 8 children died in the bombing. When told she had killed 8, not 6 children, she smiled. Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder was 4, his sister Hemda was 2. Since her release, Tamimi has spoken about waging jihad as before. She is not a heroine by any measure. Biss had been treated for severe burns in an Israeli hospital in January 2005 and returned in June using her out-patient pass to try to go to the same department that had saved her life, wearing an explosive belt, with instructions to kill as many children as possible. Since her release, she has spoken to Palestinian children, calling on them to grow up to become martyrs. She is utterly despicable by all civilized standards, and as far from being a heroine as I can imagine. Muhammad Wael Daghlas was sentenced to 15 life terms for co-planning the Sbarro massacre. He is thought too dangerous to return to the West Bank. A hero? By what warped standards can such a man be a hero to anyone?

‘These are only a few of the terrorists released by Israel. Ziad’s article describes the Israeli soldier Shalit as 'a legitimate target’. By what military standards may a soldier be kidnapped across his own border and subjected to over five years of solitary confinement, denied access by his family or the Red Cross.

‘You have published an article that turns all civilized standards on its head. Will you now publish a piece claiming that the London 7/7 bombers were heroes? That the Taliban who kill British soldiers and cause so much grief here are heroes? That murderers in the UK are heroes who deserve to be released? That kidnapping people is right? That those who executed the Omagh bombing in 1998 were fighting for a just cause, that we should build a memorial to them and give them medals?

‘You have gone too far this time. I can see no possible vindication for the publication of such a one-sided piece, which reads like a transcript from a Palestinian newspaper or a pro-terrorist opinion piece from The Guardian, which never plays by the rules. Fair argument about Palestinian aggression or Israeli responses would make a valid article, a piece that criticized violence, even if it promulgated a Palestinian position, would form part of dialogue, and I would not complain. But I am much minded of the repeated criticism that the BBC is biased against Israel. I have seen that bias played out too many times to doubt the broad accuracy of the criticism. But to publish a blatant piece that tries to exonerate mass murderers of their crimes is to pass well beyond the limits of civilized and legal discourse. Who will you choose to exonerate next? Adolf Hitler? Mu’ammar Qadhafi? Pol Pot?’

This was the reply Dr MacEoin received:

‘...The viewpoint that you complain about was a companion piece with this
article www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15369286 by Ron Kehrmann. A woman convicted of involvement in the suicide bombing that killed Mr Kehrmann’s daughter was released as part of the prisoner swap. These two articles were intended to allow and Israeli and a Palestinian to explain in detail their views and feelings about the prisoner releases. Each article is highly opinionated, personal and partisan. They are both clearly labelled as “viewpoints”.

‘The article that you refer to outlines what Mr Ghoul [one of the released Palestinian prisoners] was convicted of. It attempts to explain how many Palestinians feel about the issue of prisoners in Israeli jails and about the acts of violence carried out by them against Israelis in Israel and the occupied territories. Such views are widely held by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and therefore we feel that it is important to represent them as a means of explaining the importance of the events we are reporting on the news.

‘The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has multiple narratives and can be looked at in many ways. Military occupation and colonisation lasting many decades and the murderous attacks by Palestinians against Israeli civilians have left thousands dead and a far greater number of lives in ruins. Palestinians and Israelis have suffered greatly in this conflict. This is not to excuse any individual act of murder or violence. My point is that a piece explaining how a Palestinian feels about the prisoner releases, in this context and as a part of our wide range of coverage, is legitimate and revealing journalism.

‘I hope this goes some way to explaining why we commissioned and published this piece.

‘Best regards and thanks,

‘Tarik Kafala
Middle East editor
BBC News website’

[Teddy Bear]

Yesterday 4 rockets were fired from Gaza towards large towns in Israel. While they did no serious damage or caused no casualties, it is fair to assume that it has heightened tensions and that Israel will retaliate.

So what do the BBC tell us about it?
Nothing!
The only article they show on their Mid-East webpage is this one from a few days ago New Israeli air strike into Gaza after 'ceasefire'
On the Yahoo page for BBC news, they actually headline it as Israel strikes Gaza after 'truce'
With the BBC 'time-line' it will always be thus.

Rockets from Gaza hit Beersheba, Sderot, Sha'ar Hanegev

10/31/2011 19:00

4 projectiles fired in total in latest attack; Iron Dome system intercepts Grad over Beersheba, air raid sirens heard; Kassam falls in Ashkelon earlier, breaking lull in attacks; none hurt, no damage reported.

Three rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel on Monday evening with two landing in Beersheba, one in Sderot and one in Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council.

At the same time, the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield intercepted a long-range Grad rocket over Beersheba which was fired from Gaza.

Air raid sirens were heard across the Negev city prior to the interception.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip also exploded in an open area south of Ashkelon Monday afternoon, the first since shortly after midnight Sunday night.

No injuries or damage were reported in any of the attacks.

The IDF said overnight Sunday that its aircraft struck a rocket launching cell in Gaza after it fired a projectile into Israel.

"We identified an accurate strike," an IDF spokesman told The Jerusalem Post.

The IDF action came after three Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel landed in the Eshkol Regional Council area on Sunday close to midnight.

No injuries or damage were reported in the attacks.

The IDF approved a series of operations aimed at widening the scope of its responses to ongoing Islamic Jihad rocket attacks from Gaza on Sunday, as Egypt tried to mediate a second cease-fire after the first attempt at a truce lasted only several hours.

The planning for an intensified Israeli response, which was overseen by Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, took place in the command and control room of the IDF’s Southern Command in Beersheba, and in Tel Aviv.

As senior defense chiefs spent Sunday preparing for a further escalation, they treated reports of a new cease-fire with skepticism, after Gazans shattered a brief calm by attempting to fire a rocket into Israel around 3 p.m.

The terrorist cell that prepared the rocket for launch was struck successfully by an air force aircraft, thwarting the attack. The cell reportedly belonged to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. One terrorist was killed and another was seriously wounded.