Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: house demolition

BBC’s third attempt at a ‘truthful’ headline

Continuing the saga of the BBC’s ever-shifting headline on the story of an Israeli Arab who drove at three policeman protecting those demolishing the home of Hussam Dwayat (the July 2008 bulldozer attacker who killed three and injured 40 and was shot dead) – see my previous posts here and here .

The driver was shot dead by the police.

Headline No 1. Palestinian killed in demolition (no he was not!)

Headline No 2. Police kill Palestinian motorist (whilst attempting a 3-point turn, no doubt)

And now, No 3. Palestinian ‘attacker’ shot dead 

Note the quote marks. This warns us that someone who drives directly at and injures three policeman may not be an attacker but is so characterised by Israelis. This is because he only “injur(ed) them lightly”.

As I previously wrote, given the history of suicide attacks within Israel, how can the police take any chances with someone driving straight at them with a lethal weapon, namely a half-ton car. This is not Kensington High Street. But the BBC, in its attempt to be ‘fair’ describes terrorists as ‘militants’ and people driving directly at security forces as ‘attackers’.

They have no such scruples when they use terms such as ‘occupation’ (without quotation marks), of course.

And let us not forget that by the time this latest and considerably more accurate headline reaches the BBC’s pages, it has already ceased to be current news and is confined to the archive. It’s the earlier headlines that have already made their nasty little innuendos and have now conveniently disappeared to cover the BBC’s previous ‘bias’.

BBC’s misleading headline – again

On the BBC news site home there is a link which reads:
Palestinian killed in demolition

What?! My reaction was – “Oh no”, they’ve demolished a house with someone inside it and killed them.

But no. Nothing of the sort.

Israeli police have shot dead a Palestinian motorist in East Jerusalem who drove at them while they were carrying out a home demolition.

Ahh! So a potentially lethal attack on Israeli police is turned into a headline which clearly states that someone was killed as a result of the demolition.

The demolition in question was that of the house of Hussam Dwayat who killed 3 people in a bulldozer attack in Jerusalem in July 2008.

Now, whatever you think about house demolitions, it is clear that the BBC headline writer has seriously skewed the truth. Anyone who is not bothered to read the story will just think it’s another Israeli atrocity story.

I have complained to the BBC. I await their response.