BBC amends skewed story on lack of peace talks
Yesterday, BBC News Online published an article which failed to state that peace-talks had not been resumed because the Palestinians refused to negotiate without preconditions, and implied that Israel was still building settlements in Gaza. The article was later amended to include the Palestinian refusal to begin peace-talks, while the reference to Gaza was removed.
The original article stated that the Palestinians would seek to have an independent state recognised by the UN due to ‘a lack of progress in restarting peace talks.’ No mention was made of the fact that the Palestinian Authority refuses to participate in peace-talks unless there is a total freeze in Israeli settlement building.
The fact that the Palestinians are ‘upset over Jewish settlements in the West Bank’ and ‘have also expressed disappointment with US failure to put enough pressure on Israel to halt the construction’ did not make clear to the reader that they, unlike Israel, were refusing to restart peace talks. The updated version of ‘Israel rejects Palestinian move’, however, included the following paragraph:
‘Israel has offered to restrict the growth of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the Palestinian Authority has demanded that all construction is halted before it will again attend peace talks.’ Furthermore, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev was also quoted, outlining Israel’s position that Palestinian pre-conditions had stalled negotiations.
The original BBC article had also incorrectly suggested that Israel has settlements in Gaza, despite its total withdrawal from the territory in 2005:
‘Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told the BBC that the Palestinians felt they had few options left as Israel was continuing to build Jewish settlements on territory it has occupied since the 1967 war.
The territory includes East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinians want to establish their state.’
This misleading reference was removed in the updated article.