The war against the Jews (10)
Amongst all those committed to truth, fairness and justice the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East continues to cause widespread dismay on account of its systematic distortion against Israel and credulous regurgitation of Arab propaganda. But now the American media monitoring organisation CAMERA says it has caught the BBC broadcasting an out-and-out lie. Last Friday, as the eight students who were murdered in the library of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem were being buried, BBC World broadcast an item in which reporter Nick Miles was heard to say:
In the hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his [the terrorist’s] family home. Later, his mourners set up Hamas and Islamic Jihad banners nearby.But as CAMERA points out, the terrorist’s house was not destroyed by Israeli bulldozers that day. Nor was it destroyed on any subsequent day. Indeed, as of yesterday it was still standing.
One of the central accusations hurled by Israel-bashers is that Israel destroys Arab homes as a form of ‘collective punishment’. The distorted way in which this charge is framed has played a major role in fomenting hatred of and murderous hysteria towards Israel. Now the BBC appears to have gone one stage further. It simply made it up.
UPDATE, MARCH 13: After Fox News broadcast an item on this false claim, the BBC today issued an on-air correction, as CAMERA reports:
To BBC's credit, Geeta Guru-Murthy has forthrightly corrected the original false demolition report on BBC World News, March 13 (seen on PBS at 8:25 AM EDT) as follows: Now, we would like to clarify a report we heard at this hour last Friday about the attack by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman's home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, and the images broadcast were of another demolition. Still to be clarified are the underlying judgements and procedures that led the BBC to air this footage.