Natan Sharansky, Israel's minister for the diaspora, rightly excoriates the BBC for its knee-jerk anti-Israel bias in covering the discovery of the teenage Palestinian human bomb. As the Jerusalem Post reports:

'In comparison to other international news organizations, which focused on the use of children by Palestinian terrorist groups, the BBC portrayed the event as "Israel's cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes," he wrote. Sharansky said such an approach "reveals a deep-seated bias against Israel. Only a total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups would drive a reporter to paint Israel in such an unflattering light instead of placing the focus on the bomber and the organization that recruited him." '

And in pointing to the BBC's otherwise inexplicable double standards, he goes further:

'Sharansky questioned whether the BBC had ever run stories about Palestinian use of children for propaganda purposes or the media spin utilized by Palestinian leaders, actions which are "not a matter of dispute to any serious journalist." And yet, he continued, BBC correspondent Orla Guerin "did not feel it inappropriate to use an attempted suicide attack by a child to point cynically to Israel's attempt to manipulate the media. By applying such a gross double standard to the Jewish state, it is difficult to see Ms. Guerin's report as anything but anti-Semitic." Sharansky said historically, using "a different yardstick" to judge Jewish behavior and that of other groups has been a clear sign of anti-Semitism.'

Ah, the a-s word. That noise is the BBC clicking off.

Posted by melanie at March 31, 2004