What the BBC gets wrong about Israel

If you get your news on the Middle East from the BBC, every so often Israel appears to go mad and begins lustily bombing Palestinian civilians. No rhyme or reason. Jerusalem is simply pummelling Gaza for the hell of it. 

This impression is often created by the BBC’s approach to reporting on Israel and terrorism. The story invariably begins when Israel responds to attacks, with those original attacks deemed insufficiently newsworthy until then or reported as a retaliation to some provocation. Then, once Israel engages, the inciting incidents are quietly smuggled into the coverage but framed as just another round in the cycle of violence. Thus self-defence is cast as aggression, and aggression as tit-for-tat.  

Here’s how the BBC World Service introduced an item this morning: 

‘To the Middle East now, where Palestinian officials say that two young men have been killed during an overnight Israeli army raid near Jenin in the occupied West Bank.