BBC – Anti-Israel bias?

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The BBC routinely rejects charges of anti-Israel bias, often by noting that it also gets complaints from Palestinians. If both sides are unhappy, the argument goes, the BBC must be getting the story right. This of course would assume that both sides are equally justified in complaining. To pretend that Hamas statements are as reliable as those from accountable Israeli government officials is bias masquerading as even-handedness.

Actually, some BBC journalists don't even pretend to be even-handed. Consider Middle East correspondent Fayad Abu Shamala, who addressed a Hamas rally in May 2001, saying journalists were "waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people." The Beeb claimed that Mr. Shamala made his rally remarks in "a private capacity" and that his reporting "always matched the best standards." When Mideast correspondent Barbara Plett said during an October 2004 radio show that the airlifting of Yasser Arafat to a French hospital moved her to tears, the BBC didn't admit that she "breached the requirements of due impartiality" until listeners complained repeatedly.

There are numerous other examples that point to a simplistic narrative that invariably portrays Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as mere victims. Emblematic of this mindset is Jeremy Bowen, who was recently appointed as Middle East editor. In January, Mr. Bowen sent what he called a "mini briefing" to BBC senior executives and editors. This email was leaked and provided a rare look into the worldview that informs BBC coverage of the Middle East.

Written during the height of the internecine fighting between Hamas and Fatah, Mr. Bowen explained that "What is new...is the way that Palestinian society, which used to draw strength from resistance to the occupation, is now fragmenting" (emphasis ours). Mr. Bowen seems to have internalized Palestinian propaganda, which likes to speak of "resistance" when what is really meant is terrorism. The word terrorism, by the way, is banned at the Beeb, ostensibly because it's a value judgment. Mr. Bowen continued to see the "death of hope, caused" -- no surprise here -- "by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriations and settlement building."

In other words, even when Palestinians were killing each other, it was Israel's fault. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations: The Palestinians could not possibly be held accountable for their actions. There was no word in Mr. Bowen's "briefing" that Israel had evacuated Gaza and that Palestinians elected Hamas into government, which refuses both to accept Israel's right to exist and to abandon terror.