Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: BBC bias

BBC Israel headlines – inconsistency or bias?

I’m beginning to wonder whether the BBC is biased or just plain incompetent with its headlines about Israel.

The latest Six Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza attacks suggests what, do you think?

Israeli troops have killed six Palestinians – three in the Gaza Strip and three in the West Bank.

The Israeli military said three Palestinians suspected of trying to infiltrate from Gaza were killed in an air strike near the Erez crossing…..

Separately, Israeli forces said they had killed three men – who were suspected of killing a Jewish settler – in the West Bank city of Nablus

So the Palestinians were either attempting to enter Israel on a mission to attack Israelis

Palestinian sources in Nablus say two of those killed were militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs

or they were being arrested in response to a murder. Yet the headline suggests thee deaths were somehow indiscriminate and the ‘attacks’ assigned to Israel not the Palestinians who perpetrated or were intent on perpetrating an attack.

Look at the difference in reporting the attack on a US plane approaching Detroit on a flight from the Netherlands:

US plane attack suspect quizzed after ‘terror attempt’

Ah, that word ‘terror’ – disallowed when reporting attacks on Israel but acceptable elsewhere. No militants, insurgents or freedom fighters here, but an Al Qaeda ‘act of terrorism’. No doubt this would have been perfectly acceptable to report as ‘a militant operation’ had it been on a plane approaching Ben Gurion. But the BBC recognise Al Qaeda as terrorists because they have attacked Britain but AlAqsa and Hamas are always ‘militants’.

Go figure.

BBC’s Web Spinning is Biased (no news there then)

BBC headline today: "Fresh violence shakes Gaza Strip" What are they reporting? It’s an Israeli retaliatory attack for several rockets fired into the Western Negev Sunday and today. So why wasn’t the headline "Fresh rocket attacks on Israel".

Hamas’ attacks and those of other groups in Gaza (who call themselves by a variety of names so they can claim that Hamas did not violate the cease fire) are never reported UNLESS Israel responds and then it’s headlines of this sort we always see subtly implying that all violence is from one side in response to rockets that, by pure chance and not by intention, cause no Israeli casualties.