BBC downplays role of Hizbollah in regional tensions
At the time of writing, ‘Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri warns of Israel 'threat'’ is the top story in the Middle East section of the BBC News website. Reporting the contents of an interview by BBC Beirut correspondent Natalia Antelava with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the article quotes the leader extensively on his claims that Lebanon faces ‘a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out’ and that ‘This is something that is escalating, and this is something that is really dangerous.’
The piece also contains a video clip of Hariri making the same claims. However, at no point in the article is any response offered by an Israeli official. Nor does the BBC journalist offer any information about the Israeli position on the recent tensions with Lebanon and Syria. This is not the first time that a BBC interview with a regional leader with numerous accusations against Israel has excluded an Israel reply. Last year’s interview of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad by Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen also omitted to seek comment from Israel.
Furthermore, the sole reference in the article to Hizbollah – ‘the Lebanese militant group which fought Israel in 2006’ – was to convey Hariri’s stated commitment to ‘stand by’ the group in the event of a conflict with Israel. An uninitiated reader could reasonably conclude that an ordinary situation prevails in the current Lebanese coalition government that is headed by Prime Minister Hariri and includes Hizbollah. In fact, Lebanon almost re-collapsed into civil war in 2008 over the contentious relationship between Hariri's March 14 Alliance and Hizbollah.
The article also fails to mention that Hariri's father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was assassinated in 2005, an event which precipitated the so-called Cedar Revolution--and the attendant March 14 Alliance--that effectively ended Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon, a fact which is highly relevant to the article's reference to Syrian-Lebanese relations.
A broadcast report of the story was aired on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme at 8.51am in which presenter Justin Webb discussed the interview with correspondent Antelava. However, the BBC correspondent only made reference here to Israel’s accusation that Hizbollah is rearming when the issue was raised by Webb: ‘And talking of escalation, Natalia, is it also true that Hizbollah has been rearming?’
Only then did the BBC correspondent acknowledge this key point, but she went on to link it to recent statements indicating that in the event of another conflict, Israel will not make a distinction between Hizbollah and the Lebanese state as it did in the conflict of 2006.
The failure of the website article to offer Israel a right of reply to extensive allegations made by the Lebanese prime minister, combined with the belated radio report’s inclusion of Israel’s view that Hizbollah is rearming (absent in ‘Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri warns of Israel 'threat'’), betrays a sense of reluctance on the part of the elements at the BBC to accurately portray the active and aggressive role of Hizbollah in the region.
10 February 2009