If you wonder why Israel gets such a bad rap overseas, a good deal of it has to do with phony reports like the one filed recently by the BBC.
On Friday, March 7, 2008, the BBC’s World News with Jonathan Charles (seen in the U.S. on PBS stations as part of BBC America) aired footage purporting to show the demolition and burning of a house that belongs to the family of Ala Abu Dheim, the terrorist who murdered eight students and wounded nine others in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva (Rabbinical Seminary).
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But, in fact, it never happened! The film clip could not possibly have been of the terrorist’s family home, as it is still standing and, together with the nearby public mourning tent erected by the family, serves as a shrine dedicated to the “martyred” terrorist.
That such a shrine is still allowed to remain in place has, in fact, prompted public outrage among Israelis and members of Knesset across the political spectrum. On Monday, March 10 – three days after the report aired – Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik (Labor) petitioned the Attorney General to order the demolition of the public tent and the terrorist’s family home.
Contrary to the BBC’s report, however, the only action taken by Israeli police against the Abu Dheim home was ordering the removal of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah flags from the front of the house.
Of course the Israelis do actually demolish the homes of terrorists, but the point is that the BBC is willing to pick up stories from parties that are obviously creating purposeful fabrications to smear Israel. What other stories are these sources feeding the BBC? Isn’t there some sort of vetting process across the pond and what do situations such as these illustrate about the wider anti-Israel bias in the world? The BBC wouldn’t knowingly report something that was unequivocally false, but they wouldn’t give a story that creates sympathy for Palestinian terrorists a second glance before passing it along to the public.
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