Something is deeply wrong with the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Stephen Pollard has got his hands on a Jeremy Bowen memo about the coming year in the Middle East.  It is fascinating and depressing.

Here is what the BBC's Middle East Editor has to say about what he calls the fragmentation of Palestinian society:

The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile.

I am genuinely astonished at this. Are the doctrines and behaviour of the groups themselves not part of the explanation. The murderous militancy of Hamas? The corruption of Fatah?

It demonstrates an unbelievable degree of bias to blame Palestinian civil strife entirely on the Israelis.

But beyond the question of balance, what is striking about the memo is how poor the analysis is. There's no hint for instance of anything deeper, such as the analysis of Christopher Caldwell that I linked to yesterday. If this is the best that the Middle East Editor can do, how can correspondents with less specialist knowledge do better?

I think Stephen Pollard has discovered a really important document, which makes a loud and eloquent case that something is dreadfully wrong with the BBC's coverage.

Comments

[Alan M. Rind]

The bias of the BBC is historic in it's pro-Palestinian/anti Israel stance, a fact well known among informed commentators on the political scene. That is probably why so few give much credence to what is an unbalanced view. During the battles with Hezbollah last summer, the arguments deployed and opinions expressed against Israel were even more pronounced; it was as if the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, the cause of the conflict, had never taken place.
Yours etc.
Alan M. Rind

[Bishop Hill]

He really should be sacked for this. His credibility is shot. (If his time as the anchor on breakfast news hadn't done that for him already.)

[Graeme Archer]

Yes and well done you for highlighting it (and for Mr Pollard for finding the memo). The hope that keeps me going, when I really believe my head is going to burst with the blood pressure caused by the BBC, is that surely the future for news is extremely UNlikely to lie with a monolithic, poll-tax funded, state-owned broadcaster. I don't think we'll need to legislate to get rid of it until it's completely irrelevant. Look at how news"papers" have evolved through blogs like this, so we can comment and challenge journalists' opinions as soon as they make them. Look at Iain Dale's blog which reveals insider gossip - to which BBC journos are presumably privy too, but never thought to share with us - on a near-daily basis. Look at 18 Doughty St and Tory radio - I'm sure there are equivalents of different political hues (though Tories seem to take to blogcasting more naturally, there's an interesting article for a sociologist).

I don't know what makes me madder listening to Today. Is it the default leftwing worldview, which they even seem quite smugly to admit to (Labour ministers are only ever challenged from the left; Conservatives are only ever asked stupid questions about "which thing will you cut" when I would have thought even a graduate of the liberal arts on Today could work out that given growth, tax cuts and increased expenditure are both possible)? Or is it the, how can I put this politely, the somewhat limited capacity of mind, which seems to struggle to understand process (nobody who started listening to Today yesterday without a knowledge of the US constitution with respect to the passing of legislation when Congress is democrat and the president republican would have ended the programme three hours later any the wiser).

I won't say what I think about Mr Bowen's insightful view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, except that it confirms in black and white the impression created by most of his broadcasts. He's just the latest in a long line of one-sided BBC reporters in this arena of course: who could forget the "I cried when Yasser Arafat's body left his compound for the last time" item.

[M. Fernandez, San Francisco, California]

I personally feel that the BBC's biased reporting has acted as both propaganda and succor for murderers and terrorists. Being a once respected organization, they have given bad actors a legitimacy and have made peace less likely.

[Ned]

I think Bowen's analysis is quite balanced. Its what professional political analysts are saying to each other (none of which is to excuse the Palestinian authorities for the consequences of their policies or actions). He also stresses the weakness of Palestinian institutions and leadership - which seems quite evenhanded to me.

BTW - Caldwell's analysis yesterday tried to create a causal link between demographic trends and the violence in Palestinian society. If you look at other studies, they only admit that there is a correlation (which is quite different to causality) between demographic trends and violent societies. Other factors which have been noted to correlate with social upheaval include resource shortages (land and water) and unemployment, which Caldwell has chosen not to include for reasons best known to himself.

[Peter Bolt]

Not many years ago I remember seeing a cv (complete with photo) for Mr Bowen in a "media publication". Published thro` the auspices of an agent,presumably with the consent of Mr Bowen it made much play on his versatility and BBC connections. Nowhere was there made any mention of his "Middle East expertise".

[John Hynde]

Anyone working for Zionist Rupert Murdoch should not be trusted in giving a sound judgment about this. Rather than looking at the BBC's coverage about the Middle East, one should look at the Times' coverage about the Middle East.

[Peter Cullinane]

I served with the UN in Lebanon for two years, and have recently returned from a year in the US, where even the mainstream press is fairly blatantly pro-Israel. I was pleased to find that the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was far more balanced, although certainly not uncritical. The British media in general does international news well.

[Bill Rispin]

To my mind the BBC is far superior to the Times as a reliable and independent source of comment regarding events in the Middle East.
Indeed, I recently gave up taking the Times (having been a reader for about 35 years) because of the frustration with the bias in favour of the Bush-Blair project and within this the unconditional support for Israel - particularly in the recent unwarranted destruction of Lebanon. This policy, just as that in Iraq, has had consequences that are diametrically opposed to those that were intended, but once again seems to have been approved of by the Times.

[Damian McCarthy]

Anyone with a passing interest in and fairness should look at objective studies (such as that by the Glasgow University Media Unit). These have shown that there is a huge bias in the media in favour of Israel against Palestine.

Extracts from the study show:

(1) There was a strong emphasis on Israeli casualties on the news, relative to Palestinians (even though Palestinians had around 2-3 times the number of deaths as Israelis). In one week in March 02 which the BBC reported as having the most Palestinian casualties since the start of the intifada, there was actually more coverage on the news of Israeli deaths. There were also differences in the language used by journalists for Israelis and Palestinians - words such as ‘atrocity’, ‘brutal murder’, ‘mass murder’, ‘savage cold blooded killing’, ‘lynching’ and ‘slaughter’ were used about Israeli deaths but not Palestinian. The word ‘terrorist’ was used to describe Palestinians by journalists but when an Israeli group was reported as trying to bomb a Palestinian school, they were referred to as ‘extremists’ or ‘vigilantes’ (BBC 1 lunch time news and ITV main news 5/03/02). TV News coverage influenced some viewers to believe most deaths had been Israeli as in these comments about the reporting of suicide bombs.

(2) There is a preponderance of official ‘Israeli perspectives’, particularly on BBC 1, where Israelis were interviewed or reported over twice as much as Palestinians. On top of this, US politicians who support Israel were very strongly featured. They appeared more than politicians from any other country and twice as much as those from Britain.

(3) TV news says almost nothing about the history or origins of the conflict. The great majority of viewers depended on this news as their main source of information. Most did not know that the Palestinians had been forced from their homes and land when Israel was established in 1948. Without explanations being given on the news, there was great confusion amongst viewers even about who was ‘occupying’ the occupied territories.

Because there was not account of historical events such as the Palestinians losing their homes, there was a tendency for viewers to see the problems as “starting ” with Palestinian action.

(4) In news reporting there was a tendency to present Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as vulnerable communities, rather than as having a role in imposing the occupation. They have been built on hilltops to give a commanding position and their occupants are often heavily armed. Most viewers knew very little of this.

There is very real bias in the media and it is withoiut doubt pro-Israel.

I am geneuinely alarmed by the inability of many Jewish people to be even slightly critical of Israel.

It is an open secret that there is a rapid reaction unit (organised mainly by Jewish students). This e-mails students whenever a debate takes place on Isreal. Sites are then bombarded with pro-Isreali views.

It gets worse whenever someone expresses a view critical of Isreal complaints are made to the web-site and those views are asked to be excluded. A good Jewish friend of mine expressed views which were critical of Israel on a web-site. Complaints were made to the web-site, to her employer and she was personally verbally attacked by "friends" of hers.

That's democracy and freedom of expression for you !!

[Denis Lenihan]

Should the BBC represent everything in a completely balanced, 50/50 manner? - Even when it is obvious that the Palestinians are seriously suffering at the hands of their bigger and wealthier neighbour's military and economic attacks. I believe that the internal problems in Palestine are directly linked to the actions of Israel anyway...

[willy]

As well as this bias, perhaps someone would like to look at the remarkable slant the BBC has been putting on the news coming out of Somalia. Admittedly unscientific, my survey of this includes

a) not mentioning or emphasising civilian casualties until the american c-130 started firing
b) emphasising the "trains run on time" aspects of the Islamic Courts.
c) reporting amputations for minor offences without disapproval (imagine if the us army did that, instead of the islamic courts).

And Damian, you can add a few extra points about Israel in there:
(3) TV news says nothing about the fact that other middle east countries refuse to take palestinian refugees, preferring them festering next to israel

[A. Sullivan]

I am very pleased to see that this issue has been the source of considerable and well-informed commentary. As observed by other contributors, the pro-Palestinan stance seems to be synonymous with left-wing attitudes. The concept of the BBC is that it reports news in an un-bias fashion; this report is clear editorialism and perhaps can be attributed to recent management changes at the BBC, as well as a desire to modernise and compete with new media forms.

[Derrick Nelson]

Here in America our media is blatantly pro-Israeli. This slant is necessery in order for Israel to keep recieving the foreign aid America gives them. America gives Israel more than $2billion a year in military aid alone, and this backing helps Israel maintain it's position as one of the elite military forces in the world. If you compare military spending in the middle-east in the late 90's, Israel spent over %50 of what Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt spent combined. These figures do not even consider the Palestinians; whos only means of fighting the powerful IDF is with sticks, stones, and explosives so primitive they have to detonate them on the spot, sacrificing their own lives. This is why I find no fault with the Times or the BBC for their coverage, or even supposed anti-Israeli slant. It is common knowledge that a large percentage of the world's media has an anti-Israeli slant. Perhaps instead of crying Anti-Semitism, the media outside of the U.S. is simply doing it's right and proper job of calling the Israelis on their un-humanitarian actions towards the Palestinians who are living in occupied territory. For those of you overly critical of the BBC, try CNN.com for a while. The sad thing is, CNN is the most balanced main stream media in America.

[Marek]

The Jews have been very unkind to the Palestinians. Having dispossessed them of their land and put large numbers under military occupation for decades they find it strange that the Palestinians hate them.

If it was the British people who had been treated in this manner their response would have been even more ferocious than that of the Palestinians.

[DanM]

Auntie Beeb pro-Palestinian? Wow, who would have thought it. I can still remember the Damian Day style reporting of the beeb during 1982 so this continuing one sided bias is nothing new - particularly from Bowen who has publically stated his belief that the beeb has'nt been pro-Arab enough in the past. Now he gets (another) chance to "change" this. On a seperate topic, Marek - The Arab Palestinians were murdering Jews long before the State of Israel was established. Despite this, there are over a million Israeli Arabs today - how many Jews are left in Arab countries again?

[Les Visible]

Amazing, the spin. Eyewitnesses, including journailists, police and residents have placed the capture of the Israeli solders 'inside' Lebanese territory. Now many of the articles have been expunged from the net. Meanwhile Israeli forces were mustered at the border and prepared to attack well in advance of this so called kidnapping. Then they dropped over half a million cluster bombs in the four days 'after' peace was declared. the same goes for all manner of news concerning Palestinians and things like the assassination of Hariri which various investigations have laid at the door of Israel.

Bias? Don't make me laugh.

[David Moss]

GAZA STRIPPED [1], Mark Steyn:

QUOTE
... Muslims killing Muslims. Not a Jew for miles. So whose fault is it? Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East Editor and one of those chaps who’s been authoritatively explaining the Palestinians and Israelis to British telly viewers for as long as I can remember, was in no doubt: The Palestinian Authority has “already taken a severe battering from Israel’s military actions over the last seven years and, more recently, by the punishing financial sanctions imposed by Israel and other countries after Hamas won a free election at the beginning of last year… The financial sanctions they imposed, which caused severe hardship and helped fuel the violence in Gaza by making people even more desperate…” Etc.

“Severe hardship.” “Desperation.” In fact, “aid” to the Palestinian territories has doubled since Hamas was elected. They apparently spend most of it on their militias – the crack chef-defenestrating unit and whatnot – plus miscellaneous “Islamist causes”. But again, as with that ancient Arab League resolution, what’s interesting are the assumptions behind Bowen’s analysis: No matter what depravity they commit it is always the fault of others.
UNQUOTE

I think that's the point -- no matter what depravity they commit it is always the fault of others, whether Israel or the US or the UK, never themselves. We are guilty, come what may, they are not, slaughter whomsoever they may, whether in Gaza or the Lebanon or Iraq.

That's where the bias comes in.

Last week we learned from the BBC [2]:
QUOTE
A deadly truck bombing in a busy market in northern Iraq has killed 105 people and injured 240, police said. The morning blast destroyed the market in the small town of Amirli, south of Kirkuk, killing many people instantly and trapping dozens in the rubble ... It was the most deadly single attack in Iraq since April, correspondents say ... It came as 29 people were killed in separate violence, including 22 people who died overnight in Diyala province when a suicide bomber hit a cafe ...
UNQUOTE

269 dead. Whose fault?

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1. http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/409/26/
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6279864.stm