Israel has drawn international criticism for its latest series of onslaughts against the ‘prison’ of Gaza, the crowded home to 1.4 million Palestinians. Since last Wednesday (February 27), 112 Palestinians have died under Israeli air attacks and ‘incursions’ by Israeli troops. The dead include many women and children, such as four boys who had been out playing football and even babies killed in their homes. Last Saturday alone saw the deaths of 60 Palestinians under Israeli attacks. Three Israelis have died - one a civilian killed during a rocket attack by Hamas last Wednesday and, since then, two Israeli soldiers.
On February 29, Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UK, said on the BBC Today programme that:
“We've been restraining ourselves for a very, very long time. But we have a responsibility to defend our citizens. This is the context.” (BBC Radio 4 Today interview with Edward Stourton, Friday, February 29, 2008, 7.30 am)
The same day, a senior Israeli source threatened a “holocaust” in Gaza. Matan Vilnai, the deputy defence minister, warned:
The disconnect with the view of the Israeli public was stark: 64% support negotiations with Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, in an attempt to bring about peace.
Palestinian Terrorism: The "Inevitable Consequence" Of Israeli Occupation.
Just before this latest escalation in violence, the newswire service Associated Press briefly flagged up a report on the Occupied Territories, commissioned by the UN. (Bradley S. Klapper, 'Report: Israeli occupation causes terror', Associated Press, Feb 26, 6:11 PM ET, published on Yahoo news website). It has since been ignored by the corporate media.
The report, authored by UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard, concludes
that Palestinian terrorism is the "inevitable consequence" of Israeli
occupation. While Palestinian terrorist acts are deplorable, "they must
be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of
colonialism, apartheid or occupation." Dugard, a South African
professor of law, accuses the Israeli state of acts and policies
consistent with all three. ('Human Rights Situation in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories',
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in
the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard, United
Nations Human Rights Council, A/HRC/7/17)
The report notes that Israel has attempted to justify its attacks
and incursions as “defensive operations” aimed at preventing the
launching of rockets into Israel. Dugard states clearly that “the
firing of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants without any
military target, which has resulted in the killing and injury of
Israelis, cannot be condoned and constitutes a war crime.”
But
he also notes that “serious questions arise over the proportionality of
Israel’s military response and its failure to distinguish between
military and civilian targets. It is highly arguable that Israel has
violated the most fundamental rules of international humanitarian law,
which constitute war crimes.”
In particular:
“Above
all, the Government of Israel has violated the prohibition on
collective punishment of an occupied people contained in article 33 of
the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
In the days that followed, as
killings and injuries rapidly rose under a massive Israeli assault, we
could find not a single mention in any UK national newspaper of this
important assessment by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied
Territories.
Exchange With BBC Radio 4 Presenter
On February 29, we wrote to Edward Stourton in response to his
interview that morning with Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UK.
First, we pointed out that Stourton had not challenged Prosor's
erroneous assertion that Gaza could now run its own affairs following
the withdrawal of Israeli military forces in 2005. Prosor claimed:
"Israel disengaged completely out of Gaza more than two years ago" so
that "the Palestinians would take responsibility, would run Gaza."
Indeed,
the thrust of the BBC presenter’s own words, with multiple repetition
of the loaded word "disengagement", was that Israel was no longer the
occupying power in Gaza.
We pointed out, by contrast, the
assessment of John Dugard: "it is clear that Israel remains the
occupying Power as technological developments have made it possible for
Israel to assert control over the people of Gaza without a permanent
military presence."
We asked Stourton whether he was aware of
this assessment. Moreover, as we saw above, Dugard had observed that
Palestinian terrorism was the “inevitable consequence” of Israeli
occupation. We asked why the Today programme had not addressed Dugard’s
important new report. On the same day, Stourton responded, but only to
the first point:
“This is such a difficult area to get right and
I always welcome constructive comments - so thank you for your
thoughts. I suppose the only point I would make is that if you
challenge every statement in an interview like that it can get a bit
arid.”
A similar email to Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East news editor, about the corporation’s serious omission, went unanswered.
Stourton’s
response was standard for the BBC - friendly, well-meaning but
ultimately vacuous. By contrast, in 2004, Tim Llewellyn, the BBC's
Middle East Correspondent in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, blew a loud
whistle on the deep bias in BBC reporting:
“Watching a
peculiarly crass, inaccurate and condescending programme about the
endangered historical sites of ‘Israel’ - that is to say, the
Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories - on BBC2 in early June 2003,
I determined to try to work out, as a former BBC Middle East
correspondent, why the Corporation has in the past two and a half years
been failing to report fairly the most central and lasting reason for
the troubles of the region: the Palestinians' struggle for freedom.”
He described some of his conclusions:
“In
the news reporting of the domestic BBC TV bulletins, ‘balance‘, the
BBC's crudely applied device for avoiding trouble, means that Israel's
lethal modern army is one force, the Palestinians, with their rifles
and home-made bombs, the other ‘force‘: two sides equally strong and
culpable in a difficult dispute, it is implied, that could easily be
sorted out if extremists on both sides would see reason and the leaders
do as instructed by Washington...
“When suicide bombers attack inside Israel the shock is palpable. The
BBC rarely reports the context, however. Many of these acts of killing
and martyrdom are reprisals for assassinations by Israel's death
squads, soldiers and agents who risk nothing as they shoot from
helicopters or send death down a telephone line. I rarely see or hear
any analysis of how many times the Israelis have deliberately shattered
a period of Palestinian calm with an egregious attack or murder.
‘Quiet’ periods mean no Israelis died... it is rarely shown that during
these ‘quiet’ times Palestinians continued to be killed by the score.” (See our Media Alert)
This is the reality of a systematic BBC bias that works to suppress
public awareness of the true gravity of Israel’s human rights abuses.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and
respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge
you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone. Write to
the following editors and ask them why they have not covered the latest
assessment by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories; in
particular that Palestinian terrorism is the “inevitable consequence”
of Israeli occupation and that “the collective punishment of Gaza by
Israel is expressly prohibited by international humanitarian law.”
Writings 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
