{"id":5378,"date":"2025-08-17T17:06:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T17:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/natharatmouchrika.net\/home\/?p=5378"},"modified":"2025-08-17T17:06:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T17:06:54","slug":"the-bbc-helped-kill-anas-al-sharif-its-reporting-will-kill-more-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/natharatmouchrika.net\/home\/?p=5378","title":{"rendered":"The BBC helped kill Anas al-Sharif. Its reporting will kill more journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The media are legitimising the murder of journalists by Israel \u2013 and they are doing it because they are racist propagandists for a system of western colonial control in the Middle East<\/h3>\n
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How is it possible for a BBC reporter to have made the following obscene observation in his segment on Israel\u2019s murder at the weekend of Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif: “There’s the question of proportionality. Is it justified to kill five journalists when you were only targeting one?”<\/p>\n

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Unpacking the depraved journalistic assumptions behind this short \u201cquestion\u201d is no small task.<\/p>\n

Let us note first, in passing, the entirely false assumption here that Israel wished only to kill one journalist, Al-Sharif. All the evidence is that, in killing more than 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza over the past two years and by excluding all western journalists from the enclave, Israel has been seeking to ensure its genocidal crimes go unreported. It is systematically killing those best placed to serve as witnesses.<\/p>\n

The all-too-obvious reason Israel wiped out the entire al-Jazeera press team at this moment is that the Israeli army is about to invade Gaza City and commit yet more such atrocities.<\/p>\n

But let us dig a little deeper. If you aren\u2019t deeply shocked by the BBC, a so-called public broadcaster, thinking it suitable to air the comment above \u2013 all the more so after Israel has\u00a0killed more journalists<\/a>\u00a0in Gaza than in all major western wars over the past 150 years \u2013 consider this.<\/p>\n

Imagine that Israel finally allows western journalists into Gaza after blocking their entry for nearly two years. A team of five familiar BBC faces covering the region set up shop in Gaza and work out of an improvised studio inside the enclave.<\/p>\n

Then news breaks that that their studio has been hit by an Israeli strike, and all five killed: Jeremy Bowen, Lyse Doucet, Yollande Knell, Lucy Williamson and Jon Donnison.<\/p>\n

Israel doesn\u2019t claim the strike was a mistake, but celebrates the killings. It says it has secret evidence that one of them \u2013 let\u2019s say Jon Donnison, who made the observation above \u2013 was secretly recruited by Hamas\u2019 military wing while in the enclave.<\/p>\n

Can we imagine the BBC or any other western news organisation framing the segment in the following terms: “There’s the question of proportionality. Is it justified to kill five journalists when you were only targeting one?”<\/p>\n

We all know the answer. The coverage would rightly proceed from the fact that Israel had killed five journalists, the latest in a procession of such media workers, in violation of international law.<\/p>\n

The tone would be one of utter indignation. The framing, again rightly, would assume there could be no possible justification for such an attack on civilians. Israel\u2019s claim that Donnison was working at the time in a military capacity for Hamas would be dismissed with complete contempt \u2013 unless Israel could produce firm evidence.<\/p>\n

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Racist double standard<\/h3>\n
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