When it comes to Israeli retaliation for terrorist attacks launched against innocent civilians, BBC journalists either don’t get it, or do get it but have an anti-Israeli agenda to service.
Retaliatory actions by Israel get full coverage from our public service broadcaster as you can see here.
But as always there is only a passing explanation for the action, which is inevitably played down when, by sheer luck, the terrorist attack only causes property damage and fails to kill any Israelis. There was no report on Friday about the rocket attack. It was ignored. Why? The murderous intent behind the attacks by Palestinian terrorists is completely ignored by the BBC reporter filing the story.
And no opportunity to engage in naked moral equivalence is missed as reports are rounded off with a regular effort to portray the conflict as one sided and position the terrorists as underdogs:
Correspondents say such attacks are almost always ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.
Oh well, that’s alright then. Presumably that’s why attacks such as these aren’t reported and their impact explained, because the weapons those nice Palestinians use aren’t as effective.
One Thai farmer in Israel has been killed in the past year.
See it’s only one person, so what’s the big deal?
Dozens of Palestinians, some of them civilians, have been killed in attacks from Israel over the same period.
See? The Israelis are worse. Those nasty Israelis just launch these raids for fun and kill lots of oppressed Keffiyeh wearing chaps going about their lives. It’s an outrage isn’t it? Do you understand? Palestinians = good, Israelis = bad. You can trust us on this, we’re the famously impartial BBC for heaven’s sake. You know that because once in a blue moon we might actually publish an article telling you the Israelis perspective.
That would be the BBC that also fails to put these matters into context for readers. After all, where was the report about the four rockets and two mortar rounds that were fired at Israel just one week ago? Or the terrorist team that was intercepted just days earlier as they tried to get into Israel from their supposed ‘prison camp’ to commit another attack? We have to rely on local media for such information because the BBC can’t be relied upon to present the full picture.
Is it any wonder that we see comments such as these from people whose ignorance of the reality of life in Israel is matched only by their hatred of the Israelis who are determined to hold the line and strike back against their attackers? People who fail to note that Hamas, which controls Gaza through fear and repression, refuses to engage in direct peace talks with Israel, that even the Arab League supports, citing yet more excuses for maintaining their hateful violence.
Make no mistake, Israel often does things that are wrong or indefensible, things that are rightly condemned. But it must not be forgotten that the state of Israel has an obligation to combat the continuous threats it faces from people whose only goal is the destruction of Israel and the death or expulsion of the Jews from that land – a land the Jews had inhabited well before the time of Christ.
Autonomous Mind 
Excellent analysis. Just found your blog, will subscribe!
Seems to me AM that the BBC is not the only media source that does objective reporting – objectively anti-Israel that is. I agree with your comments by the way.
If only we had politicians with the resolve that Israel has I do believe we would not be in the mess we are at the moment!
‘Dozens of Palestinians, some of them civilians, have been killed in attacks from Israel over the same period.’
Suggests the Israelis are getting the right people most of the time.
As for the ‘just land in fields’ argument, all that can be said about the lack of precision is that it shows that the firing was indiscriminate in terms of its intention. The V1 and V2 of WW2 were also indiscriminate in terms of targetting. The purpose is terror pure and simple against a civilian population.
I would suggest that the BBC using the term militant or fighter is coming close to adding the adjectival qualifier ‘freedom’ to fighter……the mindset of the organisation is quite reprehensible.
Hamas and its various sub-groups in their ‘training camps’ are terrorists pure and simple.
I think it would be instructive, and perhaps constructive, for journalists at the BBC, and for bloggers like Peter Reynolds to spend some time living under spasmodic and indiscriminate fire.
Contrary to what is depicted in the movies, the hero or heroine cannot hear a rocket or shell or bullet approach. By the time you hear it, either you are either dead or wounded, or your friend is either dead or wounded, or you are both sprayed by dirt and stones.
Being in the blast radius is not a pleasant experience.
But what is actually worse, in reality, is knowing that there is always another one coming. It is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Hamas are consciously and cynically engaging in psychological warfare against civilian farmers and volunteer workers.
My grandfather survived the Somme; my father survived Dunkirk. They both carried the mental (and physical) scars of their ordeal for their entire lives. This is what is now being inflicted on Israeli civilians – women and children – by Hamas.
Terror is not a means of fighting a war, it is the result of living in a constant state of war, where there is no apparent end to it, and “fairness” becomes a totally alien concept.
I note that you to take pains to understand the reasons for Israeli ‘retaliation’ yet seem to ignore the causes of the Palestinian ‘provocation’. But then I suppose its just a bunch of anti-semitic ragheads doing that senseless jihad thing?
No I don’t take pains to understand it. Any reasonable person can see it very clearly. What you fail to understand or acknowledge is that many Palestinians believe that just by existing, the Israeli state is itself is a provocation.
AM I understand exactly that many Palestinian view the creation of Israel as an act of ethnic cleansing and have the courage to oppose it in the way it came into being ie with the sword. What I dont understand is that you feel that people who have been dispossessed by foreign invaders should just roll over and give up.
In what strange moral universe is it reprehensible to fight back when attacked and attempt to take back what is yours?
Foreign invaders? Another emotionally charged hatemonger springs forth. Your grasp of history displays a worrying deficiency.