The BBC Lies
Neutrality, the BBC way:
A new BBC documentary series that began Monday night and examines recent peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians shows that the BBC still has some way to go to satisfy the many critics of its Middle East coverage. But following a complaint from an Anglo-Jewish activist to the BBC’s overseer of Mideast coverage, the BBC did at least reword a trailer for the series, replacing language that placed all blame on Israel for the failure of peace efforts...
The trailer in question heralded, "The story of how Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded President Clinton to devote his last 18 months in office to helping make peace with Yasser Arafat. But Barak got cold feet twice. Then Ariel Sharon took a walk around Jerusalem’s holiest mosques, and peacemaking was over."
Children, let's review:
(1) The BBC tells provable lies about Israel.
(2) When the BBC isn't telling provable lies about Israel, they're lying by omission.
Ehud Barak did not get cold feet. He offered Arafat 97 percent of the West Bank, full control of the Gaza Strip - which he offered to increase by roughly a third, a capital in East Jerusalem, $30 billion in compensation to Palestinian refugees, and the right of return to the new Palestinian state. Obviously, most of the important people who were actually at the negotiations explicitly insist that it was Arafat who walked out.
And while Ariel Sharon really did "walk around Jerusalem's holiest mosques", the implication that he somehow desecrated those mosques is false. An honest BBC article on Israel would say that Sharon took a walk around the holiest land in all of Judaism, which happens to be near a mosque that Muslims built when they took the area over centuries ago. An honest BBC article on Israel would never imply that Sharon's walk was the reason that "peacemaking was over", because we now know that the Palestinians had been planning the war for months. Which is why an honest BBC article on Israel is a contradiction in terms.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
A new BBC documentary series that began Monday night and examines recent peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians shows that the BBC still has some way to go to satisfy the many critics of its Middle East coverage. But following a complaint from an Anglo-Jewish activist to the BBC’s overseer of Mideast coverage, the BBC did at least reword a trailer for the series, replacing language that placed all blame on Israel for the failure of peace efforts...
The trailer in question heralded, "The story of how Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded President Clinton to devote his last 18 months in office to helping make peace with Yasser Arafat. But Barak got cold feet twice. Then Ariel Sharon took a walk around Jerusalem’s holiest mosques, and peacemaking was over."
Children, let's review:
(1) The BBC tells provable lies about Israel.
(2) When the BBC isn't telling provable lies about Israel, they're lying by omission.
Ehud Barak did not get cold feet. He offered Arafat 97 percent of the West Bank, full control of the Gaza Strip - which he offered to increase by roughly a third, a capital in East Jerusalem, $30 billion in compensation to Palestinian refugees, and the right of return to the new Palestinian state. Obviously, most of the important people who were actually at the negotiations explicitly insist that it was Arafat who walked out.
And while Ariel Sharon really did "walk around Jerusalem's holiest mosques", the implication that he somehow desecrated those mosques is false. An honest BBC article on Israel would say that Sharon took a walk around the holiest land in all of Judaism, which happens to be near a mosque that Muslims built when they took the area over centuries ago. An honest BBC article on Israel would never imply that Sharon's walk was the reason that "peacemaking was over", because we now know that the Palestinians had been planning the war for months. Which is why an honest BBC article on Israel is a contradiction in terms.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
