Within a week, the BBC failed to report on two terror attacks against Israelis and misreported several other stories, ignoring footage of an IDF medic treating a PLO commissioner.

BBC has a long history of apparent bias in reporting Israeli news stories and omitting real ones. This past week, however, it seems they were especially incompetent in their coverage of Israel. The British news corporation failed to report on two terror attacks against Israelis, and several stories that they did cover were full of significant errors that seemed to show overt anti-Israel biased.

BBC’s Blatantly Selective Coverage

According to BBCWatch, the network did not report the shooting of the Israeli Embassy in Athens, Greece, this past Friday morning. The terror attack did capture the attention of the UN Security Council, which condemned it “in the strongest terms,” and used the incident to say that “[terrorism] constitutes one of the most serious threats to peace and security.”

The watch group also noted that BBC neglected to report on another terror attack that took place on the same day at the al Khader Junction, north of the Gush Etzion block in Judea and Samaria. The terrorist threw acid on an Israeli woman, her three young daughters and her niece, and injured two more pedestrians. He then chased another Israeli with a screwdriver before being shot dead by an armed witness. Despite many outlets picking up the story, BBC made no mention of it.

Caught in Lies and Anti-Israel Reporting

BBC also published factually false stories on several occasions this week, the watchdog points out. On Thursday, investigators in Mughayir reported that a mosque found aflame in the village last month was not a case of arson by Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. Rather, the fire was sparked by an electrical fault. Still, BBC issued no follow-up of its original story, in which it quoted a Fatah and a former PLO leader presenting their false accusations as fact.

In perhaps one of its biggest news fabrications of the year, the BBC grossly misreported the death of PLO commissioner Min Ziad Abu Ein, according to HonestReporting and BBCWatch. Kevin Connolly, a senior writer for BBC, wrote that he died in “clashes” with the IDF when he and his fellow protesters had come to Turmus Aya to “plant olive trees: a way of saying the land is theirs.”

In fact, the protesters who gathered there were Israelis opposing a bid sent to the Supreme Court on that day for the eviction of the Jewish village of Adei Ad in Judea and Samaria. Israeli troops were there in advance of their arrival and attempted, with tear gas, to contain the protesters approaching the outpost. Only then did Ziad Abu Ein appear, wheezing for the cameras to call the IDF a “terrorist army.”

Footage from the scene by SkyNews clearly shows a female IDF paramedic clearing the area around Abu Ein so that she could assess him before he was taken to the hospital. He reportedly refused her help. A subsequent autopsy revealed that the IDF had not caused his death—he had a severe, long-term heart condition, and he died of a heart attack.

Many other western news outlets, such as CNN and The New York Times, appear to consistently publish anti-Israel “news” with false and/or selective reporting.

By: United with Israel Staff