Late last month our colleagues at CAMERA’s Spanish language department alerted us to a report from BBC Mundo (the BBC World Service’s Spanish language service) which was headlined “Coronavirus “Apartheid”: Criticisms of Israel’s Efficient Vaccination Plan That Does Not Include Palestinians From Occupied Territories“.
Additionally, in the body of that January 26th report readers were wrongly informed that the Oslo Accords “are currently suspended”.
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint concerning the BBC’s inaccurate, misleading and offensive use of the term ‘apartheid’ together with its incorrect portrayal of the status of the Oslo Accords. Ten days later we received the following response:
“Thank you for contacting us and your complaint regarding an article published by BBC Mundo about the vaccination programme (Covid-19) in Israel, the Occupied territories and the Gaza Strip.
After reviewing the article the editors of BBC Mundo decided to edit the text and add the following line lines at its bottom:
“This note was edited to correct an error on the status of the Oslo Accords and to rectify a wrong attribution of the use of the word apartheid, which was also removed from the title.”
We apologise for the errors and hope that the action we have taken has clarified the matter.”
The report’s headline now reads: “Coronavirus: las críticas al eficiente plan de vacunación de Israel que no incluye a los palestinos de los territorios ocupados” (“Coronavirus: criticism of Israel’s efficient vaccination plan that does not include Palestinians from the occupied territories”).
The footnote reads:
An apology by the BBC after the repetitive use of the word ‘Apartheid’ on various occasions by BBC Reporters simply shows the institutional anti-Israel/anti-Semitic deeply embedded attitude
of a section of the BBC operating in the Middle East which is given autonomy.
The problem is highlighted because overall the BBC have considerable expertise and three quarters
of their activities conducted with impartiality mask the other corrupt quarter. This may change when the reduced funding effect of the 750,000 viewers/listeners refusing to renew their Licences becomes manifest and the Middle East is no longer a comfort zone for highly paid hypocrites.
The old, old story – falsely accuse your target of crimes, then correct them much later with a tiny paragraph – the BBC are expert at that trick. The position now is that Israel must supply the PA with vaccines (which they could
easily buy themselves with the money they give to murderers) so that more terrorists will be healthy to kill more Israeli citizens.