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The BBC - at it again

Monday, 21st May 2007

How the BBC's journalists must have missed not being able to distort the situation in Gaza over the past few months. How they must be relieved to have the opportunity once more.

Here's how its website reported the IDF strike on Gaza:

Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on Tuesday after a six-month lull. It followed several rocket attacks on Israel.

Several? Several?

Amazing, isn't it, that one has to rely on a private blogger rather than the BBC for a proper summary of what has been happening:

An elderly Israeli woman was badly wounded today [16th May] by rockets fired from Gaza on the Israeli Negev town of Sderot. On Tuesday, 24 rockets hit Israel and wounded 30 people. Throughout today, 21 Kassams were fired at Israel. Sderot has been repeatedly hit. Virtually none of this has been reported in the British media; the few references there have been have been made only as an afterthought to the reporting of Israel’s air raids against Hamas targets in the last couple of days...Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have fired more than 1,300 rockets into Israel. Even while they are tearing themselves apart — at least 17 Palestinians are reported to have been killed in Gaza in fighting between Fatah and Hamas —they can still find the means to bombard Israel. In the circumstances, Israel’s self-restraint has been truly bizarre. No other country would have experienced such sustained rocket attack for so long and do virtually nothing in response. No other country in the world is expected in such circumstances to respond to such acts of war by turning the other cheek. Only the Jewish state.

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avi

May 21st, 2007 8:31pm

When I was passing through London on Friday on the way home from Nigeria to Israel, I heard the announcer on the Radio4 Today programme say that Israeli forces were attacking the Palestinians in Gaza in response to alleged rocket attacks. Like the alleged Islamacist attack on the USA on 9/11 or the murders in London on 7/7 I assume. Why do you all put up with this?

annie

May 21st, 2007 9:02pm

Well said, but sadly it's not only the BBC. I found that every single media outlet, whether TV, online or the press, did the same thing - mentioned Israel's attack as the headline, and the Kassam missile attacks on Sderot were either buried well within the article or not mentioned at all.

EiNY

May 21st, 2007 11:39pm

It gets worse today, Stephen. Currently running on BBC News:

Israeli dies in Gaza rocket raid An Israeli woman has died of her wounds shortly after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit her car in the border town of Sderot, medics say. The woman was the first Israeli killed in a rocket attack since November. The attack came after Israel carried out an air strike on a refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Islamic Jihad militant group said four members died. Israeli air strikes have killed more than 30 people in the past week, several of them civilians.

As though the killing of the Israeli woman was in retaliation for Israel's earlier air strikes. And as though no rockets had hit Sderot previously. It's not biased. It's shoddy. In their attempt to remain impartial, they twist the story out of context.

j0nz

May 22nd, 2007 7:11am

An Israeli woman had now died from a rocket attack. I am pretty certain she was not planning terrorist attacks on Palestinians.

fred jones

May 22nd, 2007 4:05pm

"Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on Tuesday after a six-month lull. It followed several rocket attacks on Israel." did the air strikes follow the lull, or did the follow the rocket attacks, which surely would have been what actually ended the lull? someone's trying to have it both ways, it seems