On Friday morning's BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, I listened to Jeremy Bowen's latest report on the Israel-Palestinian conflict (link probably good till Friday 26th January, and you can download the clip). What is the solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians? asks the Today Programme web site's caption for the link to the 8:30 report.
Only that's not what you'll get a report on if you listen to the link. What you get is six minutes sixteen seconds of loaded presentation and selective reporting. For a start, the Today programme presenter introducing the report summarised the problems hindering any potential solution as depending solely on whether Israel would agree to cede the Palestinians enough land for their state and whether any Israeli government "would have the strength to defy the settler movement".
No mention in that introduction of any little matters like the Palestinian elected Hamas government which continues to state that it will never recognise the state of Israel. No mention of the whole history of continuing terrorism sponsored by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, including rocket attacks indiscriminately aimed at the civilian population of Sderot. No mention of Iranian political, financial and logistic backing for Hamas and Islamic Jihad's terrorism against Israelis.
For Bowen's report itself, here's an accurate and incensed commentary by Gavin Gross, via Malachi:
In his commentary, Bowen asserted that the idea of East Jerusalem as an Arab capital is "an idea that Israel opposes deeply" (when former PM Barak offered just this), and discussed the lack of permits for Palestinians to travel to East Jerusalem, the illegality of Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the "concrete wall, 25 to 30 feet high" near Bethlehem. He made no mention of past suicide bombings against Israeli civilians or the virtual civil war now taking place within Palestinian society.
The most offensive part of the report for me, though, was that Bowen conducted five interviews, only one of which was with a person prepared to explain Israel's position, this being Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev, and he was on air for merely 17 seconds. Thus, out of a total report lasting 6 minutes 9 seconds, an Israeli-supportive viewpoint was expressed for 17 seconds (you can count 'em).
These were the interviews in order:
A Palestinian taxi driver in Bethlehem
A Palestinian woman in East Jerusalem
An Israeli human rights lawyer who said that Israel uses a system of "apartheid"
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev, for all of 17 seconds!
A Bethlehem resident who runs a project which monitors the occupation
Actually, the report was even more loaded than that. The seventeen seconds of Mark Regev's comments were an extract clip of him saying that he thought the use of the term apartheid was as completely inappropriate as describing the Israeli pullout from Gaza as ethnic cleansing. There was no inclusion of any reason why the term was inappropriate, whereas the Israeli human rights lawyer and the Palestinians were all given extended airtime in which to present unremittingly "blame Israel" cases.
Dr Jad Ishak, the "Bethlehem resident who runs a project which monitors the occupation" works for the seemingly disinterested Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, which is funded by the EU and describes itself as being dedicated to promoting sustainable development in the occupied Palestinian territories and the self-reliance of the Palestinian people through greater control over their natural resources. .
It seems its actual agenda includes promoting divest-from-Israel campaigns .
And for his part, Dr Ishak seems to spend some of his time standing alongside Hamas members making presentations for Christian groups committed to promoting pro-Palestinian advocacy and solidarity.
Michael Sepharad, the "Israeli human rights lawyer" is an activist of the now defunct "Courage to Refuse" group which campaigned to get members of the Israeli forces to refuse to serve in Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories.
It's as if Jeremy Bowen did a report on the British role in the Northern Ireland conflict in which he interviewed groups of supporters of the IRA, the SWP and a British group committed to getting UK soldiers to refuse to serve there, with just a few seconds for a British government spokesperson to object to the wholesale adoption of the IRA's political stance.
Stephen Pollard has already comprehensively demonstrated the grossly biased nature of Jeremy Bowen's approach to his role as the Middle East Editor of the BBC through his publication of a leaked article by Bowen for BBC staff.
It bears repeating that the BBC's vision of his role is that he will enhance our audience's understanding of the Middle East; and...provide extra commentary, focus and analysis to an increasingly complex area of the world.
Meanwhile, according to last Friday's edition of Jewish Chronicle (no online link), the BBC continues to fight tooth and nail through the courts attempts to get it to disclose the internal report it compiled on its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And two days ago, the BBC announced that it's going to be allowed to raise the compulsory tax imposed with the force of the criminal law on all UK television viewers to £135 a year.
Great post, Judy.
I linked in as a comment on BBBC.
Hope that's OK.
Posted by: Huldah | January 26, 2007 at 02:44 AM