BBC Reporter: Eyewitness or Pally Propagandist?

[Teddy Bear]

Just returned from holiday so no recent updates. Found this latest communique from Honest Reporting:

The BBC's "From Our Own Correspondent" program broadcast on Radio 4 and published on BBC Online allows BBC journalists the opportunity to report their personal reflections from a particular event or location. Sometimes this removes the charade of objectivity that the BBC claims to uphold, most famously in the case of Barbara Plett's tears for Arafat.

Now, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool reports from Ramallah, where he includes this dramatic story:

One weekday last year, at about three in the afternoon, Israeli armoured jeeps moved into the centre of Ramallah, pulling up outside the most popular hummus cafe.

In full view of passers-by, including children on their way back from school, the troops dragged a man in his early 20s out of the cafe. He was a wanted militant. They shot him - first in the legs, then stomach, then his head.

Within minutes, the "Palestinian reflex" had kicked in. Schoolboys piled into the area to throw stones at the soldiers until they left. As we arrived, the troops fired back with live bullets, injuring four people, before the jeeps sped out of the city.

In the next paragraph Maqbool implies that he was an eyewitness to this incident, which is portrayed as an IDF "execution":

Once the army had gone, I have to say, I was a little surprised to see grown Palestinian men standing by the side of the road, weeping and hugging, and teenagers who'd been throwing stones, breaking down.

Maqbool appears to be describing the death of Palestinian terrorist Omar Abdel-Halim. CAMERA, however, investigated media coverage of this incident and discovered countless contradictions between the accounts of so-called Palestinian "eyewitnesses", Palestinian NGOs and media outlets, which could not even agree on the correct name of the terrorist.

While Maqbool claims that the man was dragged out of a cafe, Ha'aretz, The New York Times and AFP all reported that a firefight had broken out between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen. The Financial Times, meanwhile, reported that "witnesses said Halim was in civilian clothes, wore a holstered service weapon and was carrying an AK-47 as he left the Nazareth restaurant" in Ramallah. Was Halim "dragged" out of the restaurant as Maqbool claims?

Maqbool claims that "Israeli armoured jeeps" were present. The FT report, however, refers to "a white van bearing Palestinian number plates" from which Israeli troops exited.

According to the IDF:

The force identified Abed Al-Halim aiming his AK-47 assault rifle at them and opened fire at him. Abed Al-Halim attempted to flee the scene. Forces fired at him once more and identified hitting him. The soldiers ceased fire at the moment Abed Al-Halim no longer posed a threat to him. ...

During the operation, shots were fired and stones were hurled at the Border Police force, which responded with warning shots and specific fire at an identified source of fire. The IDF has received no information regarding civilian injuries and no such claims were registered with the DCO.

Perhaps it is not clear exactly what occurred during this incident. What is clear from CAMERA's investigation, however, is the patent unreliability of Palestinian eyewitnesses and sources along with the media's apparent willingness to report conjecture as fact.

So, is the BBC's Aleem Maqbool a genuine eyewitness to these events in Ramallah a year ago? And if so, which version of this contradictory story is he prepared to stick by? Or is he simply regurgitating the Palestinian version designed to cause maximum damage to Israel's image in a minimum number of sentences?

Typical of the BBC's reporting is the failure to provide adequate context to its stories or to verify unreliable sources. If the BBC is prepared to make such a serious allegation of an IDF "execution", then the least its reporter can provide is hard facts and background material, which was severely lacking in this particular story.

Please write to BBC Complaints - www.bbc.co.uk/complaints - and ask if Aleem Maqbool can clarify his version of events that day in Ramallah. (Please remember to include the program "From Our Own Correspondent", the story hyperlink and the appropriate date, 3 June 2008.)

(With thanks to CAMERA for its original investigation and assistance.)

[Teddy Bear]

Honest Reporting runs a follow up report to the above article:

Questions Remain Over BBC Response

HonestReporting questioned BBC journalist Aleem Maqbool's account of an incident in Ramallah a year ago where he says a Palestinian "militant" was dragged out of cafe and killed, execution-style, by IDF soldiers operating from armored vehicles.

However, differing descriptions in various media outlets as well as the unreliability of Palestinian "eyewitnesses" raised a number of questions over Maqbool's account. Was the BBC reporter motivated to collate various conflicting details into something purposely portraying Israel in the worst possible light?

Many of you who wrote to the BBC, which responded with the following:

Aleem arrived on the scene shortly after it [the shooting] happened, as stones were being thrown at the IDF, and the soldiers were firing back (as he pointed out in his report). ...

Initially, the IDF, who he spoke to on the phone from the scene, said they had targeted a wanted militant, but that there had been a fire fight which led to the man's death.

Witnesses Aleem spoke to from the cafe and the vicinity, well over twenty of them, said there had not been a fire fight. About an hour and a half after the incident, the IDF took the step of calling journalists back, including Aleem, saying that, in fact, there had been no fire fight. They said forces had killed a militant as they tried to apprehend him.

The BBC included these accounts in its coverage of the story at the time. The account of the incident in 'From Our Own Correspondent' was based on what Aleem saw, heard (and, in some cases, recorded) from many witnesses as well as what the Israeli army said at the time (which ultimately backed up what the witnesses had said).

So the BBC has clarified that Maqbool was not a witness to the incident itself, instead relying on supposed Palestinian eyewitnesses. However, the BBC still fails to address the bulk of the questions raised.

While Palestinian NGOs are not the best source for reliable information, even the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported (PDF document, bottom of page 16) that, contrary to Maqbool's account, the Israeli forces were undercover using a van with Palestinian license plates (not armored jeeps as Maqbool states) and that "soldiers in civilian clothes got out of the vehicle and opened fire at 3 Palestinian militants who had just got out of al-Manasra Restaurant." Again, this conflicts with Maqbool's description of a Palestinian being "dragged" out of a cafe. A similar account appears in The Financial Times, which even names a Palestinian eyewitness in its report.

Maqbool states that the incident took place in "full view of passers-by, including children on their way back from school." Did an incident that took place, according to PCHR, around 5pm, long after the end of the school day, involve schoolchildren? Maybe or maybe not but just this sentence by itself offers an insight into Maqbool's thinking.

While we often take issue with the reliability of Palestinian "eyewitnesses," the story in question appears to be a case of an unreliable correspondent. But how could a BBC reporter be anything less than objective?