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Watchdog: BBC Biased Against Israel

(Jerusalem Post) Jonny Paul - A report published Wednesday by Honest Reporting says that the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the first quarter of 2010 was steeped with anti-Israel bias. The study reviewed 57 articles from the BBC News Web site from January until March that often led with the Palestinian perspective or quoted "partisan, agenda-driven" Israeli organizations critical of Israel. The report accuses the BBC of presenting historical issues without context: referring to Jerusalem as "occupied" with no reference to its 3,000-year Jewish history. Inaccurate terms are often used, referring to Hamas as "militants" or Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition government as "right-wing." "By using this term - which we have never seen applied by the BBC to even the most extreme Palestinian political parties - isn't the BBC passing its own judgment? Especially considering the fact that "right-wing" is usually used as a pejorative rather than simply descriptive label, it has no place in objective journalism. "Despite BBC claims to be objective and impartial, we routinely find that its choice of stories is highly selective, focusing on Israel as an obstacle to peace while ignoring or downplaying issues such as Palestinian incitement or glorification of terror," said Simon Plosker, Honest Reporting's managing editor.
2010-04-30 09:01:12
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