Israel Matzav

'Israeli airstrikes have killed' but 'Israelis say Palestinians fired rockets'

How's this for bias from the BBC (emphasis mine, Hat Tip: Memeorandum)?

Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed at least 12 Palestinians, including a senior militant leader.

Zohair al-Qaisi, secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), was targeted because he was planning an attack, the Israelis said.

Another militant was killed with him. The Islamic Jihad militant group said 10 members of its military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, were also killed.

The Israeli military said dozens of rockets had been fired into Israel.

Why is it that nearly everything that happened to the 'Palestinians' is stated as objective fact and as having been caused by Israeli air strikes, whereas the rockets that were fired into Israel are treated as unverifiable and therefore as "the Israelis said"? Does the BBC have no correspondents in southern Israel?

I am going to guess that the answer is that the BBC has correspondents in Israel, but only in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and therefore cannot verify anything for itself elsewhere in Israel, whereas in Gaza it has 'Palestinian' stringers who present every consequence of an Israeli airstrike - and indeed the existence of Israeli airstrikes - as 'fact.' Maybe it's time for the BBC to hire Israeli stringers in our periphery so as to overcome that bias?

By the way, the caption on the picture (which if you click on it becomes a video) is amusing. It's actually the car in which Zohair al-Qaisi, secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees, was killed. But if you don't click on it and watch the car swarm video (which I embedded here from a different source), you would never know that the caption is quite understated.

Labels: BBC bias, car swarm, Gaza, Palestinian terrorism, rockets

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:15 AM