How the BBC lost 350,000 pounds sterling

By YISRAEL MEDAD

 

You perhaps will recall that the BBC has expended at least 350,000 pounds sterling on keeping secret the infamous Bowen report.  The one revealing elements of bias in his reporting and editing.

Well, this morning I saw something on the official BBC website that displays opening how biased the BBC really is in its pro-Palestinian posturing and how easy it is to illustrate that no matter how much of the public''s money they''ll spend, we know how bad the corporation is.

An audio/slide show story went up,  [credits: Audio by Yolande Knell; Slideshow production by Paul Kerley; Publication date 9 November 2012], entitled "Olive harvesting in the West Bank".

 

The blurb reads:

The annual Palestinian olive harvest is an important cultural and economic event. Nearly half the agricultural land in the Palestinian territories is planted with eight million olive trees - and there are about 80,000 farmers, most of whom operate on a small-scale basis.  But many have difficulty accessing their olive groves, because they are located close to Jewish settlements or the barrier that Israel is building in and around the West Bank. Israeli soldiers are deployed in some areas during the harvests to try to prevent clashes with settlers...

You wouldn''t know there is another side and that there are other facts and claims.
That the Achiyah Olive plant produces 12% of all Israel''s home consumption olive oil.
That even I harvest olive trees, my own.
That Jewish olive groves are destroyed and damaged.
That not all the damage is the work of, as per suspicion, Jews.
That not all the olive groves are owned by the people who claim to own them.
That olive groves existed in the land, planted by Jews, over 2000 years ago and that some groves are occupied territory by Arabs.
Did you hear in the BBC report:

"Try to attack the families"?  

Perhaps it is that Arabs are not acting in accordance with the new regulations that permits the IDF to provide security while also assuring there will be no Arab terror?  That olive groves have been used for cover for ambushes of shooting at Jews on the roads, or the trees used as cover for infiltration?

And you heard, 

 

"Expanding into his village"?  

 

But actually, no Jewish community moves into an Arab village.  We even had problems buying a house in downtown Hebron.

But let''s pay attention to the narrator, Ms. Vivien Sansour, who is not a BBC journalist.  She narrates as a guest with no reporting, no discussion, no challenging.
 
 
 

 

Some of her biography:

 

Vivien Sansour is a life style writer and photographer. She is capturing the stories of the farmers of the Palestine Fair Trade Association for the wider world. Vivien was Communications Manager/Life and Culture Specialist at The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) prior to joining Canaan. Vivien is an activist and organizer...Vivien...organized and led the wildly successful Olive Tree Circus to tour Palestine in 2008...Vivien is a native of Beit Jala, Palestine where she grew up under Israeli military occupation. She has both a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Theatre Arts, and an M.A. in International Studies with a focus in Anthropology from East Carolina University. She is interested in Agriculture as a form of resistance.

 

I think we can say that despite "growing up under Israeli military occupation", she managed to get an education and it didn''t stultify her artistic talent.

 

The BBC, it appears to me, just rolled over and thought of...Palestine.

 

They gavce her a free ride.

 

This is not reportage or a journalistic effort.

 

It is propaganda, uncriticised, imbalanced, unchecked.

 

How much will the BBC now spend defending this biased behavior?

 

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