Mick Hartley

On Tuesday I posted about the BBC’s emotional coverage of the release of a Palestinian prisoner as part of the hostage release deal – his poor sister in tears – without bothering to mention that the man was jailed for his part in sending a suicide bomber dressed as an Orthodox Jew to blow up the car which gave him a lift, killing four people.

Now the Telegraph has picked up the story:

The batch of Palestinians being released includes 249 prisoners who received lengthy prison sentences, in the vast majority of cases for murder and terrorism offences committed against Israelis.

The BBC report then cut to a sobbing Aida, who said: “They kidnapped my brother, they kidnapped them.”.

No they didn’t. They imprisoned him for his part in the killing of four Jews. Not a crime for this “sobbing Aida”, presumably. And of little or no concern to the BBC.

Campaign Against Antisemitism said the coverage proved the BBC “incapable of distinguishing itself between terrorism and its victims” and another example of its “moral blindness”.

A spokesman for the group said: “[The BBC] seems desperate to humanise the terrorists being released from Israeli jails as part of the Jewish state’s devil’s bargain to retrieve its hostages – young people stolen from their homes, communities and festivals who were then tortured and in some cases murdered.

“That is a fundamental moral failing, and it is why the BBC’s reporting over the past two years – and indeed longer – on the Middle East has been so atrocious and has so failed its viewers, listeners and readers and fuelled anti-Semitism in Britain.

“If the BBC isn’t explaining who these terrorists are, calling them by their name and recounting their horrific crimes, it is breaching its own guidelines and failing the fewer and fewer people who still rely on it for their news.”