RUTHFULLY YOURS

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot force it to drink.

This is a lesson that for some reason or another, we were persistently taught as children. The BBC seems keen on it too, dedicating an entire webpage to it, here.

It’s no wonder then that their journalists employ such tactics, leading readers to the water in the hope that they’ll partake of the flagrantly anti-Israel bias that comes with almost every BBC report out of the region.

If you haven’t yet heard, ‘militants’ (terrorists) in Gaza have broken the ceasefire from November after the intensive Operation Pillar of Cloud which struck at the very heart of terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza strip. Somehow though, this is Israel’s fault.

Of course, the BBC report here doesn’t overtly state it. But it leads the horse to the water. Observe:

BBC REPORTS:

“A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has landed in southern Israel – the first such attack since shortly after a ceasefire ended eight days of clashes in November, Israeli police say. The rocket caused some damage to a road in Ashkelon but no injuries.

The strike follows confrontations in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters. Riots broke out across the West Bank at the weekend after a Palestinian man died in Israeli custody.”

Wait. Did you see what happened there? Blink and you may have missed it. In fact, many of the millions of people who consume BBC reports such as this do indeed miss such things. Instead, their worldview is shaped by this passive propaganda. Read the second paragraph again. This time with our emphases:

“The strike follows confrontations in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters. Riots broke out across the West Bank at the weekend after a Palestinian man died in Israeli custody.” (no mention of who he was, what he did, or the ongoing investigation around his death).

And now, read what a more accurate report of the circumstances should have read.

HOW THE COMMENTATOR WOULD HAVE REPORTED IT:

“Terrorists have fired a rocket from Gaza into southern Israel – the first such attack since the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in November. The rocket caused damage to a road and infrastructure in a civilian area in Ashkelon. No injuries have yet been reported.

The ceasefire breach is being treated as a retaliation against a security crackdown in the West Bank as rioters took to the streets with some being injured in clashes with Israeli security services. Further violence has ensued after the death of Arafat Jadarat, a Palestinian man who died in Israeli custody. The cause of Jadarat’s death is thus far unknown.”

We don’t know if you see the difference. One is factual and accurate reporting. The other is basically propaganda. There are many who claim that we read too much into things, which is why we thought we’d juxtapose the two types of reports.