BBC: avoiding the bleeding obvious

The BBC "From Our Own Correspondent" programme carries a remarkable report from a Palestinian village in the occupied territories. It's headlined "A frightening family feud". A link from the main news front page on Sunday morning echoes the "family feud" theme: "Feuding families: West Bank dispute threatens to spiral out of control".

The report tells of an attack by hundreds of armed men from a Muslim village, Deir Jarir, on the Christian village of Taybeh. The reason, we are initially told is because of a relationship between a Christian man from Taybeh and a Muslim woman from Deir Jarir. It's a particularly revolting case of an apparent "honour" killing of the Muslim woman followed by the rampaging attack on the homes and property of the relatives of the Christian man.

Here's something the report doesn't explain. Why, if this is just a "family feud", did the rampaging Muslim mob that attacked the Christian village go in shouting "Allah hu akbar"? Do they routinely do that when they avenge all honour killings? And of course, we aren't told about whether honour killings are frequent in the Palestinian territories, and whether, if they are, they usually result in rampages like this?

The BBC correspondent firmly denies that the mob attack has anything to do with Islamic militancy against the Christian minority:

This is not so much a battle between Christian and Muslim as one between Palestinian officialdom and tribal justice

Well, let's for a moment imagine that might be true. What exactly has the Palestinian Authority been doing in all this? Just what is the relationship of "Palestinian officialdom" to "tribal justice"?

You actually have to read quite carefully to find any clear view of the said officialdom, and there's no actual mention of the Palestinian Authority, which presumably has legal authority. Though there is, as you might expect with the BBC, a passing and wholly irrelevant mention of "distant Israeli settlements". What you get is a mention of the West Bank regional governor who is presented as surrounded by guards and remaining entirely silent. The voice of officialdom presented is that of the Mayor of (Christian) Taybeh who stresses the usually good relations between the two communities. And we are told that he is

is relying on a truce brokered between the two families to calm the situation, and a police investigation to settle the row.

We actually get quite a different view from the Muslim village's local administration:

No investigation will convince the family of Mahdi's innocence he says. And no prison term will constitute justice. There are some things you cannot compensate for. Mahdi must die.

The death threat is supported by some in Deir Jarir's traditional council. Men like Abu Rashid - proud and straight-spined despite his years.

"In Palestinian tradition," he says, "when you make a mistake like this, you pay with your blood.

"It doesn't mean we're not brothers. The people of Taybeh and the people of Deir Jarir are one family."

So there's the Monty Pythonesque grotesqueness of the approvingly presented Mr Abu Rashid and his lovely vision of what it means to be "one family". But what do we hear of the Palestinian Authority's or the West Bank Governor's or the Palestinian police's view of this endorsement of honour killing by one of its local administrators? Nothing, it seems. And the BBC correspondent wrings her hands over the prospect of the feud spiralling out of control, but does not comment further on their failure to do their job. What we get is a distinctly orientalist presentation of a situation that's more or less inevitable in this apparently tribalist setting. And a matching total reluctance to excoriate the Authority concerned for what looks like at best incompetence and at worst complacency or even complicity.

For a rather more chilling view of what was going on, see this Jerusalem Post report. It tells us that the PA security forces did quell the riots, though it would seem that they were more concerned with protecting the local brewery of Taybeh than the innocent families attacked. And of course, the Palestinian security forces spokesperson doesn't hesitate to throw in a little Why Not Blame Israel? defence of their less than wonderful performance:

Col. Tayseer Mansour, commander of the PA police in the Ramallah area, said his men arrived late because of the need to coordinate their movements with the IDF. "The delay resulted in the torching of a number of houses and cars in the village," he said.

It's worth reflecting on how this would have been reported by the BBC and commented on by the Palestinian Authority had it been a case, say, of people from those "distant Israeli settlements" rampaging into the Christian village to uproot olive trees or beat up some of its residents.

But the really interesting thing is that this isn't the first time the From Our Own Correspondent programme has run a report playing down horrendous "tribal" violence by Muslim villagers in the occupied territories. I myself sent in a detailed complaint about that programme's attempt to blame the Jews for the particular instance of violence concerned, which was a revenge killing and desecration of a body, by stating that it was an instance of "Old Testament " style brutality. I'm still trying to get that complaint dealt with by anything other than a superficial BBC brush-off, and I shall post the whole story soon.

What seems clear, though, is that the BBC is very ready to play down violence by Muslims in the occupied territories, even if it is against fellow Palestinians. And it is totally reluctant to give them the searching scrutiny and harsh verdicts it so regularly hands out to the Israelis.

Comments

[Eamonn]

I was astonished by how this report concluded. Most of the report seemed to be factually more or less correct (with the usual BBC nuances as you spotted above), but then at the end it was portrayed as some sort of "cycle of violence" between muslims and Christians.

Huh?

Unless of course they mean that terrible evil of a Christian Arab falling in love with a Muslim Arab and she getting pregnant. Well, I guess that is what they mean. Surely I must be wrong? But this is the BBC, after all.

[Judy]

Eamonn--But this is indeed the BBC after all. You said it.....