MORE ROBIN SHEPHERD: BBC ignores incitement and anti-Semitism in outlining “core issues” in peace talks
http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/bbc-ignores-incitement-and-anti-semitism-in-outlining-core-issues-in/#more-3134
Following up on my previous two posts there is an interesting illustration of the way the BBC views the conflict between Israel, the Palestinians and the wider Muslim world up on its website in the form of a professionally laid out breakdown of the key issues up for discussion in the current talks.
In a piece entitled, Middle East talks: Core issues, BBC World Affairs Correspondent Paul Reynolds makes a decent fist of giving the Israeli, Palestinian and American positions on Jerusalem, borders, settlements, refugees and security. It’s biased of course, and I would have written it very differently, but there’s nothing especially dramatic to complain about.
What is so interesting, however, is that even in a relatively sober frame of mind top BBC journalists are completely incapable of recognising that the ultimate core issue in this conflict is the refusal of the Palestinian side to internalise the existence of the state of Israel as a legitimate nation in the world and to accept that Jews have a legitimate claim to their land in the Middle East.
Mass anti-Semitism from Fatah (not just Hamas), mass incitement to violence (see previous posting), an entirely two-faced approach to peace talks (one message in English, another in Arabic; again, see previous posting) are thus entirely ignored.
Yet it is absolutely impossible to understand why this conflict has persisted for so long unless one does in fact recognise this as the real core issue. How on earth can you have a proper peace with people who don’t accept that you should be there, and who incite their people to violence against you even as you are supposedly negotiating with them?
But for the BBC, the issue just doesn’t exist. And as long as that gaping hole in the BBC world view persists, there will never be fairness, reason and balance in its approach to the conflict as a whole.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 8:45 amand is filed under News Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through my RSS feed.
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