- The Israeli government has written to the BBC accusing
its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, of anti-semitism and "total
identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups"
over a report on a 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber last week.
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- CNN sources say the network has bowed to considerable
pressure on its editors. Israeli officials boast that they now have only
to call a number at the network's headquarters in Atlanta to pull any story
they do not like.
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- Natan Sharansky, Israel's minister for diaspora affairs,
complained that Guerin had portrayed the army's handling of the arrest
of Hussam Abdu, who was captured with explosives strapped to his chest,
as "cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda
purposes". He said this revealed "a deep-seated bias against
Israel".
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- The BBC said it was looking into the complaint, the first
by the Israeli government since late last year when it lifted a boycott
of the corporation imposed in protest at a documentary on the Jewish state's
weapons of mass destruction.
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- But the letter comes as several foreign news organizations
complain of increasing government pressure to curtail critical coverage
or to report stories Israel believes help identify the Palestinian conflict
with global Islamist terrorism.
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- Officials have presented editors with dossiers on individual
reporters and singled out organizations such as Sky News for allegedly
having an anti-Israel agenda.
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- The Tel Aviv press has called for the expulsion of correspondents
from Sky, the Times and several French papers for failing to cover a story
the government mobilized embassies worldwide to get into the media last
month.
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- In her report on Hussam Abdu last week, Guerin noted
Israel's desire to gain a public relations advantage from the arrest. She
described how the army "paraded the child in front of the international
media", and observed that journalists had been prevented from asking
him questions and therefore were left only with the army's account of the
arrest.
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- Mr Sharansky alleged that the BBC reporter "cast
aspersions on the meaning of what transpired" that amounted to "such
a gross double standard to the Jewish state, it is difficult to see Ms
Guerin's report as anything but anti-semitic".
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- The Israeli minister also protested at Guerin's conclusion,
as the youth was forced to stand forlornly alone at the checkpoint solely
for the photographers, that "this is a picture that Israel wants the
world to see".
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- Yet there is little doubt that the Israeli government
viewed the boy's arrest as of considerable propaganda value.
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- Israeli embassies urged newspapers across the globe to
run the story as part of a campaign by the government to highlight the
use of children as potential suicide bombers.
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- A week earlier, when a 12-year-old boy, Abdullah Quran,
was stopped while unwittingly carrying explosives at an army checkpoint,
Israeli embassies called news editors to insist they cover the story and
warn that failure to do so would be viewed as bias against Israel.
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- When several news organizations failed to report it,
an Israeli newspaper called for their correspondents to be expelled, including
Sky's Emma Hurd and Stephen Farrell of the Times.
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- The government emailed the article around the world and
reproduced it on official websites.
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- Gideon Meir, the foreign ministry's chief spokesman,
said the criticism was legitimate. "Sky News did not cover the Abdullah
Quran story but the next day, when the Israeli army targeted an Islamic
Jihad terrorist with a missile, immediately Sky was on the air with seven
or eight minutes of coverage," he said. "They did not cover the
first story because it does not fit into the agenda the editors have."
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- Last month the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom,
pulled out of an interview on Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton after the
show refused to cancel an appearance by the Palestinian representative
in London.
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- CNN sources say the network has bowed to considerable
pressure on its editors. Israeli officials boast that they now have only
to call a number at the network's headquarters in Atlanta to pull any story
they do not like.
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- The network's former Middle East correspondent, Jerrold
Kessel, who was widely respected for his informed and nuanced reporting,
said that while doubtlessly there was pressure on his editors to get him
to modify his coverage, he regarded it as irrelevant.
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- "The less notice one takes of pressure, the less
pressure one invites on oneself," he said. "If you get into a
mind where the pressure is a factor, you get into the mind of worrying
about what the effect of the pressure is going to be."
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- © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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