The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) faced backlash for referring to the First Intifada as a “largely unarmed and popular uprising” in an article on Wednesday.
The wording appeared in a piece about the UK Police’s decision to arrest those who chant “Globalize the Intifada” at protests in the UK in light of the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday.
While explaining the term “intifada”, the BBC wrote, “It was a largely unarmed and popular uprising that continued until the early 1990s,” the implication being that it was not a significant threat.
It subsequently retracted the wording, and the article now features an admission at the bottom, noting, “An earlier version of this article sought to explain the wider background to the Met and Greater Manchester Police announcement by referring to the first Palestinian intifada. However, the language used in this brief summary did not give a clear enough or complete picture of the history, and so this section has been amended to instead explain the context around the ongoing use of the term.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism calls out BBC's wording
The Campaign Against Antisemitism expressed outrage at the original wording.
“In reality, 16 civilians were murdered during the First Intifada, and some 1,400 were injured. Over 1,500 soldiers were injured or killed. There were more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks, and 600 assaults with guns or explosives. Hamas was born during this period.”
“That was the First Intifada. In the Second Intifada, over 1,000 Israelis were murdered, with suicide bombings rampant in Israeli cafes and nightclubs and on buses.”
“Do these sound ‘unarmed; to you?” the NGO group asked, adding that the efforts of the BBC to downplay antisemitism “evidently continue unabated.”