BBC Slammed for Imbalanced Reporting that Whitewashes BDS

The BBC’s biased anti-Israel reporting emerges yet again. 

A Texas law barring the state from entering a contract with any business unless it “does not boycott Israel” is making news after the clause was included in applications for Hurricane Harvey relief in the city of Dickinson.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the law unconstitutional and said it’s considering legal action against the city of Dickinson over its Hurricane Harvey repair grant program, which will provide money to people whose homes and businesses in the city were damaged.

The grant program’s application has a section in which individuals have to acknowledge they “will not boycott Israel during the term of this agreement.”

The BBC‘s report on the story includes a prominent video interview with pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activist Michael Deas.

Deas’s bio on the extreme anti-Israel Electronic Intifada website states he “is a Palestine solidarity organizer based in the UK.”

He was formerly a campaigns officer with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC).

HonestReporting, a media watchdog that focuses on media bias against Israel, pointed out that the BBC has given a platform for BDS to “cynically present itself as a peaceful, non-violent, Palestinian-led initiative to boycott Israeli goods such as oranges and avocados, ignoring the real aim of the campaign, which is to see the end of Israel as a Jewish state.”

The BDS movement promotes financial, academic and cultural boycotts against Israel, ostensibly as a nonviolent struggle against the so-called “Israeli occupation.” Critics say its activities are a modern form of anti-Semitism and that its true objective is to destroy the State of Israel.

“In a blatant example of imbalanced reporting, the BBC does not include any video or commentary from a pro-Israel or Jewish source opposed to BDS,” HonestReporting charged. “The presence of a hyperlink to another BBC story purporting to explain BDS in detail does not mitigate the absence of balance in the article in question.”

HonestReporting said it has contacted the BBC asking for either the removal of the BDS video or the addition of a balancing viewpoint.

The BBC has been criticized in the past on multiple occasions for its anti-Israel agenda and even its false reporting on events in Israel.

In July, former chairman of the BBC Lord Michael Grade blasted the network for its biased coverage of Palestinian terror attacks.

“If the BBC can get this wrong,” Grade said, “it is little wonder that Israel finds it so hard to put aside the idea that some critics are motivated by something more sinister than political commentary.”

While the media has denied its bias against the Jewish State, numerous documented incidents of media bias and unprofessional journalism demonstrate that there is indeed systemic bias on the part of the foreign press in Israel.

By: United with Israel Staff