BBC downplays Israeli security concerns
21 June 2010
This week, the Israeli government announced that, as expected, it would ‘liberalise’ the Gaza blockade, effectively allowing in all civilian goods into the territory. This followed international pressure, and the prospect of growing numbers of protest ships trying to break the naval blockade.
Media coverage has concentrated on the role that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair played in brokering the deal as Middle East envoy for The Quartet. The broadsheets also gave varying levels of prominence to the criticisms of local NGOs. The Daily Telegraph, for example, simply stated that ‘There will still be complaints that the easing has not gone far enough’ and that ‘There is no mention of any change to the ban on exports, which has severely damaged what remains of the Gaza economy.’ The Guardian, on the other hand, cited quotations from Chris Gunness of UNRWA, and Gisha, an Israeli human-rights organisation.
An article on the BBC News website took a slightly different approach, concentrating on the reaction from those living in Gaza itself. ‘No Gaza optimism over easing blockade’ by Jon Donnison, featured interviews with those most affected by Israel’s policies. Unsurprisingly, the Gazans quoted were highly critical of any kind of restrictions on the free movement of people and goods into the area. For example, Omar Shabban of the Gaza-based think tank PalThink stated that the current situation was akin to ‘One-and-a-half million people...trapped in a prison unable to leave.’
However, when explaining why Israel had imposed the blockade on Gaza in the first place, Donnison wrote: ‘Israel maintains tight control of the border with Gaza, only allowing out a limited number of people to seek medical treatment. Israel says this is needed to protect itself from "terrorist" attacks.’
It is unclear why the word ‘terrorist’ appears in quotation marks, especially since Donnison is attributing the claim to Israel itself, so that it is already clear to the reader that this is Israel’s opinion, if not necessarily his. By using the quote marks, Donnison appears to imply that it is only Israel that interprets the attacks on civilians (which he describes in greater detail later in the article) as acts of terrorism.
Just Journalism recently wrote about how, despite the growing coverage of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, there had been little analysis of the one of the key issues behind the blockade policy; the balance between the needs of ordinary Gazans, with Israel’s security concerns about Hamas, which refuses to renounce violence or recognise Israel’s right to exist. Given especially that Tony Blair, the architect of the blockade loosening, has been quoted in Ha'aretz as saying that ‘When it comes to security, I'm 100 percent on Israel's side. Israel has the right to inspect what goes into Gaza,’ one would expect the media not to downplay or dismiss such concerns as illegitimate.