BBC’s worst Israel coverage yet!

Right, so there has been poor, misinformative media coverage throughout 10 months of war and genocide being driven by the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and there is the most recent offering from the BBC which has been criminally bad, inexcusable misleading coverage pretty much being offered up to my mind as a way of excusing Israeli war expansion beyond Gaza, because for a change, this doesn’t actually involve the still besieged Strip. No, this time the target has been the Golan Heights, but don’t for one moment will the BBC allow you to think Israel are in anyway implicated in this matter, in fact their evening news bulletin on this matter last night according to one eminent independent journalist was ‘intentionally misleading’, because it allowed viewers to think those struck, at time of writing 11 people killed with a further 19 injured, were Israeli. They were actually Syrian Druze, because the Golan Heights, or at least the Western two-thirds of it, just like Gaza and just like the West Bank, is territory occupied by Israel and has been since the 1967 6 day war. The BBC appears to be engaged in a disinformation campaign to legitimise the expansion of Israe’s aggression, and frankly they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Right, so what has Israel done now and how have the BBC reported it? Well, I think it would be rather remiss of me if I didn’t turn to the words of the aforementioned journalist who has passed comment on such matters first, a certain Jonathan Cook, one of the most pre-eminent journalists you can possibly find on matters pertaining to the Middle East. In the course of his work he was based in Nazareth in what is now Northern Israel for 20 years. He was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism in 2011 for his work and has authored 3 books, all of which have been highly critical of Israel. He has factually spent his career writing about everything many people have only woken up to in the aftermath of October 7th regarding Israel, so a guy worth paying attention and certainly a guy who has no time or patience for misleading media. Returning to the UK in 2021, he has continued to provide commentary and analysis on the Middle East, blogging about media propaganda as much as global politics. He’s got the BBC’s number on what they are playing at, you will be hard pressed to find another journalist as familiar with and experienced on reporting on Middle Eastern events than Jonathan Cook, it’s as simple as that, therefore what he’s had to say on social media regarding the BBC’s reporting on this latest atrocity that has taken place in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights carries some significant weight. He wrote:
‘BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights has been intentionally misleading. The BBC's evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are 12 Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the Syrian population in the Golan has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation. I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell – and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory). It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel's acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of "conflict", rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of normal, pre-emptive form of self-defence. The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan. Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: "This attack shows the true face of Hizbullah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer." Except, as the BBC forgot to note, in 2014 Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza. And much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs. Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football – especially as it's one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around. So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah? The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: "This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months – that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war." So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven't been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their noses in Gaza, or its consequences. A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant "magnitude". Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its "war", are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.’
It's just example after example of precisely how the BBC have failed now, directly compared to Israeli incidents in the past for which we’re supposed to what? Feel sympathy towards Israel because they’re blaming Hezbollah for this attack when this strike, which Hezbollah have denied being responsible for, and which Israel has of course not presented any evidence for - the BBC just uncritically taking the word of our old friend Mr Pointy, Daniel Hagari - on Syrian territory they illegally occupy?
Where Palestine occupation has been recognised as a legal one up until very recently, when the ICJ issued their damning verdict based on a request from the UN General Assembly dating back to 2022 on the legality of the occupation in light of allegations of war crimes, which they found was the case and have therefore rendered the occupation of Palestine illegal, albeit only in an advisory capacity, the same is not true of the Golan Heights. Sure if you listen to Donald Trump, it’s Israeli territory, but the UN has never recognised the legality of Israel’s occupation of what is Syrian territory and it’s not as though Israel haven’t tried this on, when they tried to legalise their occupation, legalise the annexation of Golan in 1981 with their Golan Heights Law, which, naturally, passed in the Israeli Knesset, but was condemned globally. In no small part this occupation is why war between Israel and Syria has been an ongoing conflict to this day, having raged pretty much for the entire existence of Israel on and off as that has.
The strike in Golan centred around a football game in the Syrian Druze community of Majdal Shams, a group in the Golan who unlike some others, have never accepted Israeli citizenship, hardly making them a likely Hezbollah target in which case, but despite that this was allegedly in response to the destruction of the Kadija girls school in Gaza by the IDF. But the consequences of this Golan attack and the fact so much media are automatically blaming Hezbollah despite their denials and that lack of evidence to prove otherwise at this time, makes a lot of the rhetoric around this dangerous and comes amid concerns that Israel’s expansion of it’s war will be driven harder by this, Israel taking this as an excuse to attack Lebanon even harder than it already is exchanging fire with them, as has been happening since Israel began it’s onslaught in Gaza, Hezbollah mounted attacks on northern Israel in support of Gaza much as the Houthis in Yemen did.
Already the US has condemned Hezbollah for the attacks, despite no proof being shown in a repeat of the whole UNRWA story in a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me routine.
We’re no better here in the UK as David Lammy also made an ‘I was born yesterday’ comment on social media, saying:
‘The UK condemns the strike in Golan Heights that has tragically claimed at least 12 lives. We are deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation and destabilisation. We have been clear Hizballah must cease their attacks.’
What proof that it was Hezbollah have you seen Dave?
We know Israel will attack their own people, only a truly sick society would have such a thing as a Hannibal Directive to take out their own people rather than let them be taken hostage, so show me the proof this wasn’t Israel? Show me it was Hezbollah? I’ll happily stand corrected, especially since Hezbollah do not generally deny their attacks when it is them, they can be frequently brutal as well, they’re generally quite open about it though.
That said, eyewitnesses to the attack, which Mr Point and his Israel military declined to interview, claim the missile dropped onto the pitch from an Israeli Iron Dome defence battery, several of which are positioned in the Golan Heights and adding fuel to the fire that this is another Israeli con, is the fact journalists who wanted to inspect the impact site were prevented from doing so.
Benjamin Netanyahu has used these allegations against Hezbollah as a pretext to end his US trip early, I hope they got all his laundry done in time, he takes suitcases of it when he goes stateside bizarrely, takes advantage of even more freebies than Keir Starmer it would seem.
But where the BBC and other media are now worrying and getting about repercussions from this attack, why were they unconcerned about he same happening in Gaza? It led to Hezbollah increasing their aggression, Islamic State in Iraq as well, the Houthis, Syria, Iran, all have mounted further aggression against Israel as it was razing Gaza to the ground, 39,000 people there dead versus 11 Syrians, though every death is regrettable and we should mourn them, why are those 11 more important to the media narrative than the 39,000 are? Jonathan Cook is right to point this out and the BBC once again proves it’s coverage of world events is reprehensible and the licence fee is a scam if this is what we pay for.
Speaking of, it’s little wonder more people are choosing to bin the licence fee and refuse to pay for BBC services any more is it as the latest accounts show half a million more households have binned it, leaving an £80m black hole in spending for the Beeb. They are blaming the cost of living crisis, but with news coverage like this, is that really the whole truth? Get the details of that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.