LETTER FROM JERUSALEM: ANTI-ISRAEL PROPAGANDA ON THE BBC AND VOA
By Arlynn Nellhaus

The number one news item on BBC's World Service radio today, one that BBC apparently saw as making the most serious impact on the world, was the murder of the Nepalese royal family.

No. 2 was the bombing story in Israel.

As I write this, 19 young people (the number might go higher) were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber outside a Tel Aviv disco before midnight on June 1. The dead were as young as 16. One 16-year-old and her 18-year-old sister died.

Some 100 people were injured, four critically, nine seriously. That can mean loss of legs, arms, hands, eyes and life-threatening injury to internal organs from nails, bullets and metal pieces, including balls that shot into some of the victims' brains, packed into the bomb.

The metal balls that were packed into the bomb were ball bearings, which entered their victims' brains and bodies at tremendous speed and kept rolling on. Doctors said they never had seen any damage like that caused by this bomb packed with nails, screws, ball bearings, and metal shards.

It's been reported, at least by the Israeli press, that news of the bombing brought Gaza and Ramallah residents into the streets to celebrate -- remember, Ramallans were our neighbors who lynched the two Israeli men -- and shooting into the air.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders called the bombing a "legitimate act," and Hisbullah praised the "holy martyr." The 22-year-old "martyr's" father, who lived near Amman, said he's proud of his son and wishes his four other sons would do the same.

Is it any surprise that when I learn of responses like these I despair of there ever being peace? There's no common language, no common values. This was such a terribly sad day.

Considering how often BBC quotes people saying that the Israeli-Palestinian violence could ignite an area war, I question BBC's news judgement. In contrast, the Voice of America made the bombing their first story.

Later in the day, a BBC reporter mentioned that several Palestinian bombs had gone off during the past week without causing serious injury. He never mentioned the Israelis, including an American woman, killed in drive-by shootings during the past week. Four were killed within three days.

In fact, BBC never mentioned these killings on the days they happened. They apparently weren't news to BBC.

Incidentally, the VOA did report on the four who were killed. But they were labeled "Jewish settlers." VOA should know that these victims had a nationality. It was Israeli.

Later on in the morning after the Tel Aviv bombing, BBC took a different tack.

Now the No. 2 item began with Israel having ordered a complete closure on the Palestinian Authority turf "because of a bombing." Only later did the reporter mention that the closure was "after 17 young Israelis were killed."

It isn't only BBC news judgement that I question, but their reporters' expertise. For instance, on May 27, a reporter put the Baha'i World Center and its newly opened kilometer-long gardens, going up the mountain, as being in Tel Aviv.

Well, it isn't. It proudly sits in Haifa.

That same day, BBC put a bomb that went off in Jerusalem as being in the Old City. Nope. It went off in the pub area near the Russian Compound, outside of the Old City walls, less than a mile away.

BBC located the second Jerusalem bomb nine hours later "on the road that "leads through the Old City." Actually, it was detonated not far from the first bomb, but on Jaffa Road, which leads to the Old City, in no way what so ever "through the Old City."

Perhaps city maps aren't part of BBC reporters work equipment.

Which reminds me of the time I heard BBC broadcast on its world music program a recording by Ofra Haza. She was described as being from Yemen.

The late Haza was born in Israel of Yemenite heritage. On the record BBC played, she was, as usual, singing in Hebrew. As I recall, it was a prayer in Hebrew.

Always, there is BBC's and other news outlets' choice of dubious words. On May 29, BBC reported that Palestinians were angry about Israeli building on "occupied Palestinian land" and, later, that Russia called for a stop to building on "Palestinian territory."

The only land that can be referred to as "Palestinian" is that which Israel ceded to the Palestinian Authority. It is land on which upwards of 95 percent of Palestinians live today under Yasser Arafat.

There never was an independent country known as "Palestine," nor did the United Nations 1947 partition ruling divide the land into any part that was "Palestinian." The UN simply designated the parts as one for Jews and one for Arabs.

Unless the BBC deliberately wants to be a propaganda voice for Palestinians, it should use the neutral statement, "disputed land."

On that same broadcast, while BBC broadcast Palestinian concerns over turf, BBC never deemed it newsworthy to mention that an Israeli had been killed near Bethlehem.

Later that evening, the news emerged that two Israelis had been killed. Again BBC never mentioned it.

The VOA, in contrast, did broadcast about Israelis killed by Palestinian "gunmen" that day. But VOA didn't mention that the shootings were claimed by Fatah groups who are under Yasser Arafat.

If England and Europe are getting the same news about the Middle East that I hear on BBC's World Service, no wonder they pamper Arafat. They simply don't know what's going on here.

The differences among BBC, VOA and the Israeli English news are intriguing.

It may come as a surprise, but the most even-handed reports are from Israel Radio, which can be picked up around the world on short-wave and on the internet at at www.israelradio.org.

Israel Radio always includes Palestinian sources and interviews Palestinian representatives. Often their outrageous accusations – such as that Israelis are dropping poisoned candy for children -- are left unanswered. (But how could anyone even try to answer that accusation with a straight face?}

One particular Israel Radio reporter needles everyone he interviews equally, no matter what the interviewee's politics. That is balanced reporting.

VOA has become more balanced lately, but when I started listening to it in the fall, I was appalled. I thought I must be mistaken, that I wasn't hearing the Voice of America, but the Voice of Palestine.

A reporter named Sonja Pace, actually the Moscow bureau chief, but parachuted in when the crisis began last September, flat out said that Ariel Sharon caused the violence by visiting Haram a-Sharif, the Moslem holy site.

Eventually, she got around to identifying the place as the Temple Mount, holy to Jews -- the holiest site to Jews, in fact, but she didn't note that.

She then went on to interview two or three Palestinians and one Israeli. The Israeli she picked wasn't from Sharon's party or even a middle-of-the roader, but Prof. Eddie Kaufman of the Truman Institute at Hebrew University.

Kaufman is well known for his identification with the Palestinian cause and for allowing the Palestinian flag to fly over the university. Pace offered no balance to his position or for someone to speak who was representative of most Israelis' feelings.

She would have been flunked out of journalism school for presenting a report like that – both one-sided and inaccurate.

In the fall, the VOA broadcast news of Israeli "violence" against Palestinians, but failed to mention that this was in retaliation for Israelis being killed by Palestinians in ambushes, drive-by-shootings or bombings.

In the winter, VOA reported that Ehud Barak wasn't re-elected prime minister because he "failed to tie up a deal" with Arafat. That VOA reporter must have had Yossi Beilin, who clings to the Oslo Accords no matter what, as his source.

Barak was rejected because the Israeli public couldn't stomach his vast concessions – especially when they offered no guarantee of peace.

On April 29, VOA reported that a bomb exploded near "a bus taking settlers to school." These "settlers" were children.

On May 17, VOA ran a feature questioning news reporting balance from this area. A spokesman for the American-based Arab Media Watch claimed that the journalists slant their news in favor of Israel.

This would amaze Israelis, who are incensed by what they see as CNN's and BBC's disregard for Israeli suffering and their buying into Palestinian justifications for violence.

The Arab Media Watch spokesman maintained that one reason the news is pro-Israel, is because, he said, some 80 to 85 percent of the journalists covering the Middle East are Jewish. VOA didn't question that assertion. That figure is nonsense.

The VOA reporter interviewed Andrew Rosenthal, a New York Times editor, who said reporters based in Israel get the same guidelines as reporters anywhere else. He said that reporters are expected to rise above their identities and that it's the same for Jewish reporters as it is for a Democrat who has to write about Republicans.

Well, the Jewish reporters often don't follow such guidelines. Often, they seem so determined to prove how even-handed they are, that they become lop-sided and blatantly pro-Palestinian or anti-whatever the current Israeli government is. They become advocates, instead of sticking to their jobs as reporters.

This particular news segment ended with an interview of an American who worked for a Jordanian newspaper.

As far as I know, VOA never presented the Jewish or Israeli view of international coverage of events.

And to think – VOA is an improvement over BBC. Which just goes to show how bad the reporting is.

Arlynn Nellhaus is a former Denver Post reporter now based in Jerusalem, and the author of Into the Heart of Jerusalem, and a freqent contributor to The Idler.