BBC approach to Christian flight from West Bank
During Pope Benedict XVI’s tour of Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, the pontiff made a number of speeches directed at the Christian communities of the region. This triggered a discussion about the population’s predicament, which was widely covered on the BBC News website.
The issue of a steady decline in Christian numbers in the West Bank raised questions as to the cause. Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen went as far as to describe it as ‘the crisis that Christianity faces in the Holy Land’. Across the different articles published, differing levels of emphasis were given to the two main reasons to which the rise in Christian Arab emigration is generally attributed: Israeli occupation and Islamic intolerance.
Our analysis revealed that BBC articles attributed much more weight to the argument that Christians were leaving Bethlehem and Nazareth because of Israel, rather than intimidation by Muslim Arabs.
In ‘Reflections on Pope’s Holy Land tour’ Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen reported that ‘those in the Palestinian territories say the main reason is the difficulty of life under Israeli occupation’. He made no mention of the problems between the Muslim and Christian communities.
‘Palestinian Christian couple’s divided life’ by Aleem Maqbool, also focused on the difficulties faced by a Christian couple, one living in the West Bank, the other in Gaza, in light of Israel’s security measures. The introduction asserted, ‘Many Palestinian Christians have emigrated in recent decades to escape the pressures of conflict and Israeli occupation.’ The only explicit mention of Christian-Muslim tensions came in the form of a vehement denial of problems by the leader of the Latin Church in Gaza: ‘We are suffering together under the occupation and with war and this blockade’.
Only Tim Franks’ articles gave any weight to the argument about tension between Christians and Muslims being a primary cause of Christian flight. In ‘Mixed emotions for Pope in Bethlehem’ he stated, ‘Privately, some Christians in Bethlehem say another factor sometimes motivates their decision to leave – concern about the rise of radical Islam – but they are unwilling to put such views on the record.’ He addresses the issue again in ‘Pope brings Nazareth to a standstill’ in which he takes conflicting views from Muslims.